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THE BIBLE STATUS 
OF WOMAN N OF Pi 


LEE ANNA‘STARR, D.D., LL.D. 





Foreword by 
LYMAN E. DAVIS, D.D., LL.D. 
Editor, The Methodist Recorder 





New York CHICAGO 


Fleming H. Revell Company 


LONDON AND EDINBURGH 


re Sy i , | Sieg ih ics x ti, a “4 ane: te) ‘t ‘ 24 
tei bie Peet " hore Copyright, 1926, by 
| _ LEE ANNA STARR © 


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New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 


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Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 
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PLP RET TPs UP OPED TRE Maen pe Pn AG 


DEDICATION 


Henrietta G. Moore said: “Of all women to be immortalized, of 
all women to whom an after-age should bring gratitude, are the 
women who had the personality and the greatness to rise above 
the ignorance and superstition evidenced in custom, and the op- 
pression defined in law.” Such a woman was my mother, Sarah 
J. Harper Starr. As a prospective bride, she resolved not to 
take the vow of obedience at the hymeneal altar, but through all 
the subsequent years she was a most devoted wife and mother. 
The heart of her husband safely trusted in her and her children 
rose up and called her blessed. Every worthwhile reform found 
in her a zealous champion. To her memory this volume is af- 
fectionately dedicated. 

LeE ANNA STARR. 


OPEN MY EYES THAT I MAY SEE 


ne PEN my eyes that I may see 

6, Glimpses of truth Thou hast for me; 
Place in my hands the wonderful key 

That shall unclasp, and set me free. 
Silently now I wait for Thee, 
Ready, my God, Thy will to see; 
Open my eyes, illumine me, 
Spirit divine! 


“Open my ears, that I may hear 

Voices of truth Thou sendest clear; 

And while the wave-notes fall on my ear, . 
Everything false will disappear. 

Silently now I wait for Thee, 

Ready my God, Thy will to see; 

Open my ears; illumine me, 

Spirit divine!” 

Ciara H. Scorr. 


INTRODUCTION 


4 AHE author of this volume is an ordained minister of the 
Methodist Protestant Church, a denomination which 
recognizes the mutual rights of men and women in the 

pulpit as well as in the pew, and whose ordination of Dr. Anna 

Howard Shaw, at Tarrytown-on-the-Hudson, in 1880, gave to the 

Christian Church one of her most eloquent oracles. 

Dr. Starr occupies a place among the elect ladies of her de- 
nomination second only to that of Dr. Shaw. Dr. Starr has not 
only made a distinguished name for herself on the lecture platform 
in the effective championship of temperance reform, but has served 
also with notable efficiency in the pastoral office, her career includ- 
ing a successful term of years as minister of the College Church 
at Adrian, Michigan, and an equal record of achievement at 
Avalon Park Church, Chicago. 

Throughout these years of practical service to God and hu- 
manity, Dr. Starr did not neglect for a moment the mountain- 
paths that lead to the springs of the higher learning; and her 
thorough acquaintance with the original languages of the Bible, 
as well as with the literature of her subject, from the earliest to 
the latest, admirably fitted her for the task she has so well per- 
formed. “The Bible Status of Woman” will doubtless become a 
standard authority throughout the Christian world. 

The author carries her argument to practical conclusions, thereby 
reaching the heart of the multitude as well as the mind of the 
scholar. This commendable simplicity, emerging from scholastic 
depths at every turn, will give universal value to the work as a 
popular book of reference. 

We offer to the readers of this remarkable book a foretaste of 
the literary feast which awaits them; a feast made substantial 
throughout by sound learning and the best of logic. 


5 


6 INTRODUCTION 


Having quoted the Scripture, “He which made them from the 
beginning made them male and female,” and said, “they twain shall 
be one flesh,” the author happily insists that “the investiture of 
the one is the investiture of the other”; with “not the slightest inti- 
mation of sex domination.” And she follows with the “inevitable 
conclusion that the sphere of the wife is codrdinate and coex- 
tensive with that of her husband.” This reminds us of Victor 
Hugo’s character in the story of Ninety-three, who said: “I believe 
that woman should be subject to man on one condition; namely, 
that man shall also be subject to woman.” One is led also to 
think of Tennyson’s poetic message, in which he says of man 
and woman: 


“And so these twain upon the skirts of Time, 
Sit side by side, full-summed, in all their powers, 
Dispensing harvests, sowing the To-Be.” 


One of the rarest treats of the book is the author’s development 
of the relative functions and powers of Miriam and Moses. She 
says: “If we insist that Miriam was restricted to the leadership of 
the women, then, as Moses led only the men, his power must have 
been restricted to men.” 

Dr. Starr’s translation of St. Paul’s “keepers at home” into 
“house-keepers,” is one of the typical X-rays by which, through- 
out the whole book, the innermost centers of the subject are un- 
veiled. 

We congratulate American Christians of every creed on the 
privilege offered them in the publication of Dr. Starr’s book; and 
we commend it alike to the keenest of Biblical scholars and to the 
humblest of Bible students, especially urging the claim of this 
authoritative work to a place of honor in the library of every 
minister and teacher of the Word. 


LyMAN Epwyn Davis. 
Pittsburgh, Pa. 


AUTHOR’S PREFACE 


ELIEVING that the prejudice of the past has obscured the 
B teachings of God’s Word concerning the status of woman 

and her rightful place in the Divine plan, the author has 
undertaken the writing of this volume, and now commits it to the 
prayerful consideration of open-minded readers of both sexes. 
The attitude of approach will have much to do with the conclu- 
sion. The prayer of the Psalmist was: “Open Thou mine eyes 
that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy Law.” Only as 
we are willing to be taught, will the Spirit guide us into all truth. 
May this ever be the attitude of both the author and the readers 
of this volume. 

BEA: 


Bellevue, Pennsylvania. 


Fi ; 
Shs 


f oe 
5. 


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eit ry wie 
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was tat 





Alp 


Ih 


CONTENTS 


Hebe PRIM ATN HSTATE Wiemann N snom iyi dia dea sy lida 


The Bible the inceptor of true reform—The normal status 
of the sexes indicated, Genesis i and ii—Misapplication of 
Genesis iii:16—Priority of creation not a proof of Adam’s 
superiority—“Rib,” in Genesis ii:21-23, an erroneous transla- 
tion—Doctrine of the simultaneous creation of the sexes un- 
supported by Scripture—The term “help” not indicative of 
subordination—No significance attaches to the naming of 
animals by Adam—That the Serpent approached Eve, rather 
than Adam not proof that the latter would not have suc- 
cumbed to the tempter—Adam’s downfall not due to con- 


jugal love—The primal equality of the sexes indicated by _ 


an inexorable law of eugenics. 


GENESIS) 117710—WAS TD ROPHECY 2. reds 


A foretelling the consequence of sin—“Shall’ an unwar- 
ranted translation—“Thy turning,” better supported than 
“thy desire’—A prophecy fulfilled—The ages long restrain- 
ment of woman—The victim of oppression in heathen lands 
—Shackled by law and custom in civilized countries—Insti- 
tutions of learning barred their doors against her—Science 
spurned her advances—The professions tabooed her—Busi- 
ness denied her the right to enter—Discriminated against in 
the matter of wages—Her achievements accredited to others 
—Wrought in the field of literature under masculine pseu- 
donyms—Pilgrim mothers—Illustrious women who sur- 
mounted obstacles. 


CsE NESTS TIT*TO-——W AS ITO RENALTY £0) bn keth ah is 


Penalty presupposes guilt—Innocence a sure defense in the 
court of Divine justice—Womankind in general had no share 
in Eve’s transgression—To penalize offspring for the wrong- 
doing of a forbear, prohibited in Sacred Writ—The vicarious 
death of Christ, not a penalty enforced, but voluntary as- 
sumption—Scripture must be interpreted “according to the 
analogy of faith’—Physical and moral law ordained with 
benevolent intent—“A snare hath increased thy sorrow’— 


9 


PAGE 


17 


27 


10 


IV. 


V, 


Wis 


CONTENTS 


Opposite psychological effects of penalty and prophecy— 
Adam’s behavior when confronted with his guilt, did not 
merit exaltation—If Genesis iii:16 was a penalty imposed 
because of Eve’s transgression, it was not a part of the 
Divine plan “from the beginning’—Penalty cannot antedate 
the offense—If Eve’s posterity were penalized for her sin, 
why were the male descendants exempted?—The penalty of 
sin is death, not child-bearing and unproductive farming— 
God did not curse Adam and Eve—Why did woman submit 
to man’s domination?—The prominence given to Genesis 
iii:16—The emancipation proclamation—I Timothy ii:15. 


ANTEDILUVIAN AND PATRIARCHAL AGES. . . . 


Glimpses of Eve after the Fall—Her name changed from 
“Tsha” to “Havvah”’—‘‘Her seed”—Von Baer’s discovery— 
The Greek conception of motherhood—“I have gotten a man, 
the Jehovah”—Importance attached to names—Cain and Abel 
—The veil drawn—An antediluvian household—The first 
polygamist and the second murderer—“The sons of God” 
and “the daughters of men’—Noah and his household— 
Oriental chronology—The Matriarchal Age—Abraham— 
Sarah—Hagar—The rights of a pelegesh—The expulsion of 


Hagar and Ishmael—The status \6f woman in Arabia— - 


Hagar and Ishmael settle in Paran—Hagarites and Haga- 
renes—Isaac—The quest for a wife—Rebekah—Jacob—The 
dower—A polygamist—Independence of woman in the early 
Patriarchal Age—Subsequent degradation—Wife capture. 


UNDER THE Mosaic DISPENSATION: IN THE 
TLOME Re coe, , th UP A ay 


The Sinaitic Code ef a sateenerien woman—The 
Thirty-first chapter of Proverbs—Its author a woman—The 
status of the mother—The sister—The daughter—The wife 
—Her dowry—The Ketubah—Duties of the husband—Duties 
of the wife—Her health safeguarded—Tah-méh, after child- 
birth—Birth rate of males higher among Hebrews than 
among Gentiles—Annulment of rash vows, and vows that 
“afflict the soul”—Wife-purchase, and wife-capture—Four 


types of marriage: (a) Isha; (b) Beena; (c) Baal; (d) + 


Levirate—Concessional features of the Mosaic code—Divorce 
Laws—The term “Baal”—The conservation of womanhood 
higher under the Sinaitic code, than under any known system 
of legislation. 


UnNpDER THE Mosartc DISPENSATION: IN THE 
CHURCH e e e ° ° e . e e e 


No record of organized ire prior to the Exodus—That 
women did not offer sacrifices during the Antediluvian and 


54 


73 


IOI 


VET 


VIII. 


CONTENTS 


Patriarchal Ages, an assumption—Women in the Sacred 
Choir—‘Alamoth’—“Ministered at the door of the Tab- 
ernacle’—-Were women debarred from the priesthood ?— 
“Every male among the priests’—Meal, sin and trespass of- 
ferings only eaten at the Tabernacle or Temple—‘A 
freak in exegesis’—No proof in the Old Testament that 
women were excluded from the priesthood—Priestesses in 
neighboring cults—Hezekiah’s proclamation—Jewish regis- 
ters—‘‘David’s sons priests’—The rights of Beena marriage 
Excerpts from Dr. Ismar Peritz’s thesis—‘Woman in the 
Ancient Hebrew Cult”—Women Nazarites—Women proph- 
ets—Miriam—Deborah—Huldah—Schools of the Prophets 
—“Versagerin”’—Old Testament prophecies concerning 
woman. 


Tue Mosaic DISPENSATION: INTHE STATE. . 


The Theocracy—A woman triumvir—Woman in the judge- 
ship—Deborah’s part in the battle against Sisera—The Song 
of Triumph—Its author—Three of the outstanding peans of 
the Bible by women—The authorship of the Books of Ruth 
and Esther—Deborah’s long and peaceful administration— 
The eldership in Israel—The eligibility of women—The 
“wise woman” of Abel—The “wise women” of Israel—The 
“heads of father’s houses—Women listed in the geneological 
table of I Chronicles ii-x—Religious and political status of 
“heads of father’s houses”—“Daughters of Zelophehad”— 
Mahlah—Early origin of the order—Shiphrah and Puah— 
Women dukes among the Edomites—Founding of the Hebrew 
monarchy—Two women on the throne. 


4 


PER ATLIT CDE ORV PRGtemi se iran) Gat stn garg las 


Intercourse with heathen nations made impress on Hebrew 
laws and customs—Debasement of woman _ throughout 
heathendom—The institution of the Oral law among the 
Jews—Rabbinical precepts concerning woman—Jesus’ de- 
nunciation of the Oral law—His repudiation of rabbinical 
ethics—The woman of Samaria—Mary in the “Inner Cir- 
cle’—Her choice of “The better part” —-Women accompanied 
Jesus on His missionary tours—‘Their substance’—Fol- 
lowed Him to Calvary—Present at His entombment— 
“Farly at the sepulchre’—‘Appeared first to Mary Magda- 
line’—The great commission—Latitude of the terms “My 
brethren”; “His disciples’—“Them that were with them” 
—Women tarried in Jerusalem for “The promise of the 
Father’—Jesus, unlike other founders of religion, imposed 
no restrictions on woman—Recognized no double standard 
for the sexes—“‘Never man spake like this man.” 


11 


161 


12 


bg, 


XI. 


CONTENTS 


DuRING THE INAUGURATION OF CHRISTIANITY . 


Awaiting “the promise of the Father’—-The Pentecostal 
baptism—“Tongues, parting asunder like as of fire, sat upon 
each one of them,’’ women as well as men—“All filled with 
the Holy Spirit”’—“All spake with other tongues as the 
Spirit gave them utterance’—Joel’s prophecy fulfilled—Was 
the “gift of prophecy,” and the “gifts of tongues,” on this 
occasion a permanent bestowment?—Were the women in 
the upper room, “witnesses chosen before of God” ?— 
Women prophets recognized in the second Jewish Common- 
wealth—Philip’s daughters, “which did prophesy’—Women 
evangelists—House-churches—Women responsive to the Gos- 
pel message—Lydia—“Chief women”—Damaris—Priscilla— 
“expounded” the way of God—The authorship of the Epistle 
to the Hebrews—Harnack’s hypothesis—Tests of authorship 
applied—Anonymousness of the Epistle: How accounted 
for? The “meddlesome scribe’; The Acts of St. Prisca— 
Uncertainty of the authorship of Epistle to the Hebrews 
conceded—Relegation of woman to the background at- 
tributable to Church hierarchs, 


PETRINE HEREGEPTS 0). Re ian ead teh 


But two New Testament writers discourse concerning women 
—Scripture writings require their proper setting—First 
Epistle of Peter—Time and circumstances of its writing— 
Not a general epistl—To whom addressed—Asia Minor a 
Roman province—The law of Patria Potestas—The legal 
status of the wife—Unreasonable to impose this law on sub- 
sequent generations—Representative character of Roman 
father and husband—I Peter iii:16 not a restatement of 
Genesis iii:16—The occasion and purpose of the First Epistle 
of Peter—The antecedent connection of “likewise” and “in 
like manner”’—The influence of a godly life—Woman’s 
adornment—Masculine interest in feminine apparel—Import 
of Hupakouo and Shama—“Calling him lord’—In what 
sense is woman the “Weaker vessel’ ?—The sexes com- 
plementary. 


PATLAIN EAB CORIE TALS obec. seduce Me RMR nme Br oUt Lah be 


Prominence given the Pauline teachings in every contro- 
versy over the status of woman—The age in which Paul’s 
epistles were written—The addressees subjects of Rome— 
First Epistle to the Corinthians—Was every utterance of the 
Apostle Paul prompted by the Holy Spirit?—Does the Bible 
teach the infallibility of the Apostles?—A colligation of 
uninspired passages in the First Epistle to the Corinthians— 
Local in their application—I Corinthians xi:3—Headship of 
man a Roman dogma—“The perpetual tutelage of woman” 


177 


207 


232 


XII, 


XIII, 


CONTENTS 


—Double-headed women—Women excluded from the coun- 
cils of the church—An unsatisfactory translation—Corin- 
thians xi:3 regarded as an interpolation by some expositors 
—A sane interpretation—Epistle to the Ephesians v:21-33 
—A. borrowed verb—Unwarranted change of mood and 
voice—Symbolism—“As unto the Lord’”—Headship of hus- 
band reviewed—Changing a statement into a command—Cit- 
ing a law not a certitude of approval—‘“Saviour of the 
body”—The rendering of the Emphatic Diaglott—Exhorta- 


tion to husbands—Compelling power of love—Epistle to the , 


Colossians iii:18, 1¢0—Similarity of hortations to those of 
the Epistle to the Ephesians—I Timothy v:14—Ruling the 
household—Epistle to Titus—“Keepers at home,’ an er- 
roneous translation—“That the word of God be not blas- 
phemed”—Jesus inculcated obedience to law—The weapons 
of Christianity not revolutionary. 


PAUILAN Ea ATTITUDE: 2500 ee Gee Heck Lou) twee ata Be 


The Apostle Paul the only New Testament writer who an- 
nounced disciplinary rules for women in the church—His 
deportment and teachings must harmonize—Priscilla an out- 
standing personage in the church at Rome and Ephesus— 
Honored by “All the churches of the Gentiles’—-The 
Apostle’s “fellow-worker’—Phcebe—A minister of the 
church at Cenchree—‘Divers weights and measures’—Greek 
word for “deaconess” not in the New Testament—‘“Deacon” 
of common gender and applicable to both sexes—Women 
ministers in the primitive church—Pliny’s letter—Pheebe, a 
woman “set-over” many—‘Helper”’ and ‘“‘succorer” inex- 
cusable translations—The Apostle Paul inducted Phoebe 
into office—Gave letter of introduction and commendation— 
Junia, “of note among the apostles’—Thecla, an apostle— 
“Acts of Paul and Thecla’—Mutilation of manuscripts— 
Salutations to women in the sixteenth chapter of Romans 
—Convenient disposition of women prominent in the church 
—Mary: Tryphene: Tryphosa: Persis—Euodia and Syn- 
tyche, Paul’s fellow-laborers—“In the Gospel”—Woman’s 
high social position in Macedonia—Daughters of Philip, the 
evangelist—A lost opportunity—The Apostle Paul, by de- 


-portment, encouraged woman as functionaries in the church. 


PADDLING VLANDATES Hire Ueto hearer Mat iue eh deg 


Range of Pauline casuistry—Attitude of the church regard- 
ing the digamus, lawsuits, uplifted hands, feet-washing and 
the “holy kiss’—Pauline regulations concerning women local 
in their application—First Epistle to the Corinthians xi:4-16 
—Buchanan’s recently discovered manuscript—First Epistle 
to Corinthians a response to a letter of inquiry—Paul’s 


13 


262 


278 


14 


XIV. 


XV. 


CONTENTS 


jurisdiction confined to Gentile churches—Jews worshiped 
with head covered—Corinth a Greco-Roman city—Factions 
in the Corinthian church—Efforts to bring xi:5-16 into line 
with xiv:34—A startling statement—Exercise of Spiritual 
gifts outside the range of human interdictions—Unwarranted 
assumptions—Veiling of women in the Orient—Uncovered 
head a badge of harlotry—Corinth proverbially immoral— 
Personnel of the Corinthian church—Double standard for 
the sexes in the Orient—Veil not a symbol of subjection— 
Logic awry—A_ syllogistic puzzle—Gratulations of com- 
mentators—Apologies for Paul—Apostle consistent in his 
argument—Reckoning with popular prejudice—“Image and 
glory of God’—Ground for woman’s creation—‘Glory of 
the man”—“Power over her head’—Interpolation—Mysti- 
cal or physical head?—Woman’s power of choice—Long- 
haired men an error in translation. 


PAULINE MANDATES, (Continued)uiiu. 10.45 ue, 


The battle ground—Rules of exegesis—I Corinthians 
xiv :34, 35—Authenticity questioned—An innovation—At 
variance with generality of commentators—Rejected by the 
author—Attire for women when prophesying—A mistransla- 
tion—Apostle did not charge women to “keep silence in 
the churches”—Disorders in the church at Corinth—Business 


sessions—Force of “Hupotasso”’—“The law’—Jewish divi-. 


sion of Old Testament Scriptures—Latitudinous use of term 
“the law’—Addressing a Greek congregation—I Timothy 
ii:11, 12—A blameworthy translation—Not to women in 
general, but to wives—A further explanation—The office of 
teacher—Teaching and preaching not identical—Council of 
Carthage interdicted women teaching men—Regulations con- 
cerning public prayer—Exegetical controversy—A false 
measure—I Timothy v:1, 2—Women elders in the primitive 
church—Order abolished by the Council of Laodicea— 
Etymon of “Hieroprepeis’—“Consecrated Virgins’—Presby- 
terial widows—Women deacons—“Anthropos’ generic— 
Ahead of his generation. 


LON CLUSION ee Res ales ie MOLE aa ae an SR Ss 


The Bible a boon—Mistranslations and misapprehensions 
“evils under the sun’—Law of Patria Potestas prevalent 
throughout the Roman Empire at dawn of Christian era— 
Emancipation of woman during Antonine period—Social 
evolution accounted for—Rapid spread of Christianity— 
Equality of the sexes—A revocation—Religious hierarchs 
the repressers of woman—Differentia between contents and 
increments of religion—Padma Puran—Status of woman 
under Mosaic law—Divestiture effected by Rabbim—Attitude 


313 


341 


CONTENTS 


of Christian hierarchs—Primitive church democratic in gov- 
ernment—Subsequent curtailment of the rights of the laity 
—Woman relegated to the background—Constantine’s ac- 
cession—First Ecumenical Council—A new epoch—Decrees 
of Ecumenical councils—Resuscitation of the Patria Potestas 
—Extension of Canon law—Subjugation of Britain—With- 
drawal of the Roman legions—Christianity supplanted in the 
British Island—Intercourse with Rome renewed—Augustine 
and his monks—Struggle for religious supremacy—Rome 
triumphant—Origin of common law—King Alfred and his 
Dome-Book—Recodification by Edward the Confessor—Ex- 
tension of common law—Substratum of laws in the United 
States of America—The Romanizing power in Great Britain 
—Common law, in its relation to woman, a replica of the 
Patria Potestas—Debasement of woman—Justinian pandex 
—Enthusiasm of the clerics—A new Roman Empire—Pre- 
lates of the Eastern Church also reprehensible—Attitude 
of Church Fathers—Their successors—Retardment of the 
church resultant on the restrainment of woman—Woman’s 
activity in the church of today—Dearth of ministers— 
Women in “detached service”—Plaint of a bishop—Feminiz- 
ing the church—A timely warning from an editor—A third 
maleficent result: Race impairment—Maternal influence—A 
well-attested case—“Wanted—Women.” 


15 


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. THE 
BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


I 
HER PRIMAL ESTATE 


} \HE Bible is not antiquated; it has never yet fallen in the 


rear of the world’s progress. Every reform that makes 

for the true uplift of the race has inception here. We 
are living in a fast age; new truths are unfolding with celerity; 
the multiplied agencies for good are putting on more and more 
pressure, but notwithstanding their accelerated speed, not one of 
them has outstripped the divine volume. Individuals of sluggish 
thought have at times claimed the warrant of Scripture, but keener 
research has revealed their error. Savants of science betimes have 
looked askance and pronounced the records of “The Book” inhar- 
monious with their findings, but history proves that science has 
again and again revised its conclusions.t In multiplied instances 
its exclamation points have been exchanged for interrogation 
marks. Many of the pet theories of the past have been discarded, 
but, today, the Bible holds enlarged place in the thought of 
mankind—not a jot or tittle has been surrendered. ‘What saith 
the Scripture?’ “Thus saith the Scripture,” and “It is written” 
more than ever determine the beliefs of the race. It is true that 
the advanced thought of the age is out of harmony with some of 
the interpretations of bygone years, but that in nowise effects the 
contents of the divine volume. The fallibility of human under- 
standing in nowise alters the truth as revealed in God’s Word. 
Not Scripture, but our exegesis has been at fault. 


1 Professor George Frederic Wright says: “The history of science is little 
less than one of discarded theories.” 
17 


18 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


The proponents of true reform need never fear to look within 
the covers of the Bible for sanction. They will find it here, en- 
wrapped in some mandate or promise which the near-sightedness 
of the race has overlooked or misread. At times, some holding 
to the equality of the sexes have felt constrained to apologize for 
the teachings of Scripture on this subject; others, smarting under 
a sense of injustice, have flouted Sacred Writ. The purpose of this 
volume is to show that there is widespread misapprehension as to 
the attitude of both the Old and New Testament on this question. 
Our appeal is to the Word itself. “What saith the Scripture?” 
The Bible advances no simian theory as to the origin of man, so 
we turn to the Mosaic record—to the first and second chapters 
of Genesis. Here we find the sexes in normal relation; here the 
thought of God is revealed. Too many begin their study of the 
woman question at Genesis iii:16. In doing so they err. The 
question is older than Genesis 11i:16. If we would know the mind 
of God and His purpose concerning the sexes, we must go back 
to the first and second chapters. Jesus Himself pointed to “the 
beginning.’ When the Pharisees caviled because of His strictures 
concerning the loose divorce laws of that age, He answered: 
“From the beginning it was not so,” “He which made them at the 
beginning, made them male and female . . . and they twain shall 
be one flesh. . . . What therefore God hath joined together, let 
not man put asunder.” Jesus pointed, not to Genesis iii:16, but to 
“the beginning.” 

The Mosaic record takes us not only to creation, but more than 
that—into the Council Chamber of the Most High. Genesis 1:26, 
we read: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after 
our likeness; and let THEM have dominion over the fish of the sea, 
and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle and over all the 
earth.”” Here we have.the declared purpose of God, antedating 
the creation of the sexes. 

Interpretative of this decree, we turn to Genesis v:1, 2. “In 
the day that God created man (O%N), in the likeness of God 
made He him; male and female created He them, and blessed 
them, and called their name DAN, “man” (or “Adam’’) in the 
day when they were created.” 


HER PRIMAL ESTATE 19 


The reader will note that the Hebrew word O18 occurs twice 
in this passage. In verse one the translators render it “man’’; 
in verse two, “Adam.” Either is allowable, but as it is held to be 
generic in verse one, it seems better to make it correspond in verse 
two: And God called their name O78. “man.” We return now 
to Genesis 1:26, and find the same word ois; “And God said, 
Let us make man” (Q7&)— this human pair whom He called 
Ox “in the day when they were created.” “And let THEM’— 
this human pair—“have dominion over the fish of the sea, and 
over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, 
and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” 

In the face of this unequivocal declaration of the Divine pur- 
pose, expounders of Sacred Writ have, down through the cen- 
turies, dinned into the ears of the race, that “from the beginning” 
the Almighty decreed the subordination of woman. When proof 
is demanded, they point with confidence to Genesis iii:16, ignoring 
the awful hiatus between creation and the apostasy. 

It is noteworthy that redactors with one accord cite Genesis 
1:28 as indicative of God’s purpose concerning man, oblivious of 
the fact that these words were spoken to Eve as well as to Adam, 
and with as much import. Notwithstanding this, they appropriate 
the passage as the heritage of man, and generously point woman 
to Genesis i1i:16 as her allotment. We protest. If Genesis iii:16 
is expressive of God’s purpose concerning woman, then Genesis 
ili:16-19 is expressive of His purpose concerning man. It is 
palpable injustice to set the stakes further back in one case than 
in the other. If, on the other hand, the Divine purpose relative 
to man is found in Genesis i:28, then the Divine purpose relative 
to woman is found there also, and no mortal may dispossess her 
of her birthright. 

It is astounding that translators, revisers, and compilers, requisi- 
tion Genesis iii:16 whenever the Divine intent concerning woman 
is under discussion. We find it on the margin of every reference 
Bible. Exegetes and commentators seize upon it with avidity as 
their favorite proof-text. Have they measured the import of 
such a claim? 

It is recorded that Luther once said: “If a woman becomes 


20 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


weary and at last dead from bearing, that matters not. Let her 
only die from bearing; she is there to do it.” Expositors of 
Sacred Writ announced the premises, and Martin Luther drew 
the inescapable conclusion. 

If these expounders were right, we face the appalling fact that 
the Almighty—one of whose attributes is Love—‘“in His inscru- 
table wisdom,” and “for His own glory,” brought into being a 
human creature with full intent to “greatly multiply” her “sorrow 
and conception”; to rack her with birth-pangs, and to subject her 
to the domination of her husband. This “from the beginning” was 
His intent. Away with such dogma! It asperses the Divine char- 
acter. Men who propound such doctrine are afflicted with mental 
and moral myopia. 

In order to escape a conclusion so derogatory to Omnipotence, 
resourceful expositors perform a surgical operation. ‘They dis- 
member Genesis i1i:16, making the last clause—“thy desire shall 
be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee’’—the primal purpose 
of the Almighty, and all else—the multiplied sorrow and concep- 
tion, and birth-pangs—His afterthought, consequent on Eve’s 
transgression. Who, we ask, gave these prestidigitators authority 
to tear this passage asunder? “Thy desire shall be to thy husband, 
and he shall rule over thee” is bound to what precedes, and we 
may not dissever them. The little conjunction “and” does not 
stretch from Creation to the Fall. 

Genesis 1:27. “So God created man (O48) in His own image, 
in the image of God created He him; male and female created He 
them. And God blessed them and said unto THEM, Be fruitful, 
and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have 
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, 
and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And 
God said, Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which 
is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in the which is the 
fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” 

Here is the warranty for dominion, and it was given to woman _ 
as much as to man. 

One fact in this record indicates its inspired origin. It is 
characteristic of human-made religions to proclaim the subordi- 


HER PRIMAL ESTATE 21 


nation of woman from the moment of her advent. Man is her 
ordained master. His prerogative to rule; her imperative duty to 
obey. It is otherwise in the record before us. There is not the 
slightest intimation of sex domination in Eden. The investiture 
of the one was the investiture of the other. God said unto THEM, 
(amd) “Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl 
of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” 
“And God said, Behold, I have given you (025) every herb bearing 
seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in 
which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you (o>5) it shall be 
for meat.” The pronoun throughout is in the plural. Eve’s power 
was coordinate, and her sphere coextensive with that of her 
husband. 
We have heard much in the past about woman’s sphere, and it is 

a trite saying that “Woman’s sphere is home.” Woman’s God- 
given sphere is as wide as the earth’s circumference, as high as 
the firmament and as deep as the sea. Talk about a woman getting 
_ out of her sphere! She would have to get off the earth in order 
to do that. Every foot of this globe has been deeded to her as 
much as to man. Her title is in fee-simple from her Creator. 
Who is he that would dare build a fence about some dooryard 
and say to woman—“‘Here is your sphere’? 

“They talk about a woman’s sphere 

As though it had a limit; 

There’s not a place in earth or heaven, 

There’s not a task to mankind given, 

There’s not a blessing or a woe, 

There’s not a whispered yes or no, 

There’s not a life or birth, 


That has a feather’s weight of worth— 
Without a woman in it.” 
—Kate Field. 


God did not invest man with dominion until woman stood by 
‘his side. Not until then did He pronounce His benediction and 
place the scepter in their hands. Thenceforth they were to be 
joint rulers over every living thing that moveth upon the earth, 
flieth through the air or swimmeth in the sea. Adam acknowledged 
this co-regency. After his transgression he said: “The woman 
Thou gavest to be with me”—not, “the woman Thou gavest to me.” 


22 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


Eve was not his property. “The woman Thou gavest to be with 
me”—his associate in government as well as his companion in 
the home. 

It is sometimes urged that priority of Adam’s creation would 
indicate superiority. Such argument is a boomerang. The order 


of creation was ascending, not descending. “ This is not only the 


teaching of Scripture, but it is also the testimony of science. The 
lower orders first. Each successive creative act brought forth 
higher. The fact that Eve was formed after Adam would argue, 
if anything, superiority. If priority of creation is a proof of 
superiority, the monkey has advantage over man, for the monkey 
was on the scene first. 

The advocates of the superiority of man had best be wary here. 
An array of arguments can be mustered on the other side from 
the Mosaic record. (a) The order of man’s creation militates 
against such claim. (b) The substance from which his body was 
formed—“The dust of the earth’—was inorganic. Woman, on 
the other hand, was built of organic substance. (c) To this may 
be added the fact that man physically is of coarser mold. The 
beard and hirsute cuticle ally him, in appearance at least, more 
closely to certain members of the animal kingdom. Mr. Darwin 
himself incautiously admits that “hairiness denotes a low stage of 
development.” The author attaches no importance to these inci- 
dentals, but mentions them to show that claimants for the supe- 
riority of man by no means occupy an unassailable position. 

At this point we call attention to the fact that the word “rib” is 
a faulty translation of the Hebrew yoy in Genesis i11:21-23. A 
better rendering would be “side.” The passage would then read: 

“Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he 
slept. And He took one (sriydsn nm) from his side? and closed *, 
the flesh instead of her (RNR) - And Jehovah God built the side 
(yoyn) which He took from Adam for a woman, and caused her 
to come to Adam.” In verse 23, we read: “And Adam said, This 
is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 
Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” 

The usual rendering of yoy is “side.” Take, for example, Jer. 
xx :10, “I have heard the defaming of many, terror on every side” 


“« 


HER PRIMAL ESTATE 23 


(ydy) « II Sam. xvi:13. “Shimei went along on the hillside” 
(yx) - The rendering “rib” in these passages would obviously be 
incongruous. The Hebrew word poy occurs forty-two times in 
the Old Testament, and nowhere is it translated “rib” except in 
Genesis 11:21, 22, descriptive of the creation of Eve. In the 
Septuagint we find the word z)eved, which, in New Testament 
Greek, invariably signifies “side.” 

The fact that woman “was taken out of man’”—formed from 
his side—has led to the contention on the part of some that the 
sexes were created simultaneously. The author knows of but two 
passages in Scripture which controvert this belief—I Timothy ii:13, 
and Genesis ii:18,° In the former we have the apostolic declara- 
tion: “Adam was first formed (émAdo@y), then Eve.” The diffi- 
culty here may be surmounted by the fact that the New Testament 
word for “create” (xciw) is not used, but m\dcow, which signifies 
“to form,” “to mold.” In Genesis 11:18, we are confronted by 
a real obstacle. We there read: “And Jehovah God said, It is 
not good that the man should be alone: I will make to him a help 
Wy) suitable for him.” Dr. William Rainey Harper transliterates 
the clause: “Not good (the) being-of (the) man to separation- 
his.”’—In our English idiom, “It is not good for man to be in his 
separation” (jn) . 

Instead of Adam being a bi-sexual individual, androgynous or 
hermaphrodite, he was, prior to the advent of Eve, in a divided 
state—in separation from his correspondent. To hold that the 
sexes were created simultaneously and conjoined in one individual 
sets at naught this declaration of Scripture. The separation was 
prior, and not synchronous with the advent of Eve. It may interest 
the reader to recall at this point that the savants of evolution 
postulate the simultaneous origin of the sexes. According to this 
theory, the hypothetical animal which functioned as the primeval 
progenitor of the human race was androgynous, or hermaphrodite. 
A separation of the sexes followed in due season. 

Genesis ii:18: “And Jehovah God said, It is not good that man 
should be in his separation, I will make to him a help (71y) suitable 
to (¥5) him,” or, “as over against him,” or as “answering to him.” 
The Douay version renders thus: “A help like unto himself.” 


24 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


Here again we have proof of the straits to which the contestants 
for man’s supremacy are driven. They seize on this word “help” 
("Iy) as proof of the subordinate relation of woman. The facts 
are against them. The Hebrew word “}y occurs twenty-one times 
in the Old Testament, twenty times it is used of a superior, and 
in sixteen cases relates to Divine help, e.g., Exodus xviii:4, “God 
of my father was my help” ("1y)- Psalm xxvii:9, “Thou hast 
been my help” (1y)+ Psalm xciv:17, “Unless Jehovah had been 
my help” (iy) Psalm cxlvi:5, “Happy is he that hath the God 
of Jacob for his help” (71y) et al. 

Another passage mustered to prove the primal supremacy of 
man is Genesis ii:19, 20: “And out of the ground Jehovah God 
formed every beast of the field, and every bird of the heavens: 
and brought them unto the man to see what he would call them: 
and whatsoever the man called every living creature, that was the 
name thereof. And the man gave names to all cattle, and to the 
birds of the heavens, and to every beast of the field: but for man 
there was not found a help meet for him.” 

As the record shows, this naming of the animals occurred before 
the creation of woman. In this, expositors, especially of the older 
school, discover certitude of man’s supremacy. The seriousness 
with which they advance this claim is provocative of mirth. They 
attach no importance whatever to the fact that Eve named her’ 
offspring (Gen. iv:25). That, to their minds, was incon- 
sequential compared to the naming of the lower animals. In the 
early history of the race it was the mother, rather than the father, 
who named the children. Out of forty-four cases mentioned in 
the Old Testament, in twenty-six instances the naming is ascribed 
to women, fourteen to men, and four times to God. But suppose 
we concede, for the time being, that the distinction accorded Adam 
in the naming of the brute creation was certification of man’s 
supremacy over woman; have expositors gained anything? Is this 
journey for their honor? Far from it. They are brought face to 
face with the humiliating fact that Jehovah God declared man 
unequal to his responsibility: “And Jehovah God said, It is not 
good that the man should be alone, I will make to him (35) a help 
suitable for him” (Gen. ii:18). There we have the Divine ap- 


~ 


HER PRIMAL ESTATE 25 


praisement of man’s single-handed government. The incontro- 
vertible proof of man’s supremacy—the naming of the animals— 
is sandwiched between the two announcements of his insufficiency. 

Much has been made of the fact that the tempter approached 
Eve rather than Adam. Ellicott says: “According to rabbinical 
writers, Eve was addressed because it was very doubtful whether 
man would have yielded.” Eve, the “weaker vessel,’ accomplishes 
the downfall of the stronger. The Serpent could not subvert 
Adam; Eve apparently had little difficulty in this regard, thereby 
proving herself stronger than the Arch-Tempter. 

Milton, in “Paradise Lost,” attributes Adam’s lapse to conjugal 
love. Devotion to Eve impelled him to share her downfall. A 
poet’s fancy! Adam’s charge against his wife immediately after 
the transgression was by no means symptomatic of undue affection 
on his part: “The woman Thou gavest to be with me, she gave to 
me and I did eat.” 

There is a fact which to the author’s mind proves beyond ques- 
tion the equality of the sexes at creation—and here is an argument 
that should appeal to the student of eugenics. If Eve were inferior 
to Adam, or vice versa, then God, at the beginning, provided for 
the deterioration of the race. Let us illustrate: A stronger being 
weds a weaker. Now in obedience to the law of heredity, the 
offspring of such pair will be inferior to the superior parent. The 
stock has been weakened by misalliance. The offspring, in turn, 
mates with his inferior and there is further impairment. Each 
succeeding generation sinks lower in the scale of being. The 
habitual inferiority of one sex, will, in time, insure race extinction. 
This law operates with certainty in the animal kingdom, and we 
have no warrant for postulating otherwise in the realm of human- 
kind. To insist on either male or female inferiority at creation, 
is to charge the Almighty with design against His creatures; with 
foreordaining human retrogression. 

At creation the human pair stood on a parity, correspondent 
beings, reciprocal in their relation to each other, ‘““And God saw 
everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.” 

Before the advent of woman there was incompleteness. Ani- 
mate nature was inadequate to man’s needs. His yearnings were 


/ 


ead 


26 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


unsatisfied. For man there was not found a help answering to 
him. “And Jehovah God said, It is not good that the man should 
be alone: I will make to him a help corresponding to him,” and 
He “brought her to the man.” In that sacred hour and hallowed 
spot the first human utterance recorded on the pages of Sacred 
Writ was spoken: “And the man said, This is now bone of my 
bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman.” 


< 


II 
GENESIS III:16: WAS IT PROPHECY? 
P AHROUGH the centuries that have elapsed since our first 


parents were expelled from Eden, no passage of Scripture 
has claimed larger place in the thought of mankind than 
Genesis 11:16. “Unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply 


thy sorrow and thy conception: in sorrow thou shalt bring forth ~* 


children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall 
rule over thee.” 

Here we have the sexes, not in normal, but in abnormal relation. 
Catastrophe has overtaken the race: the harmony of creation has 
been destroyed; everything is unbalanced; there is subversion; 
there is chaos. In the crash, woman finds herself unseated from 
her throne—not by Divine edict, but by her own wrongdoing. 

Now are we to go to this wreck and ruin to study the normal 
relation of the sexes? The author thinks not. There is no longer 
harmonious adjustment: everything is out of joint. If this be the 
mind of God, why did He promise a Saviour—a Restorer—a 
Repairer of the breach? 

Genesis 111:16 must be regarded as a prophecy, or as a penalty. 
The author accepts the first view. Standing in Eden, Jehovah 
God bade our first parents to look adown the ages, and behold the 
awful outcome of their sin. Dr. H. A. Thompson, commenting 
on this passage, says: “This was not a new enactment, but a 
prophecy of the treatment that should come to her” (Eve). 

There is nothing in the Hebrew text requiring the intensive 
rendering “shall,” instead of “will.” The verb is a simple Qal 
imperfect. One of the outstanding criticisms of scholars, relative 
to the King James Version, is its too free use of “‘shall.” In the 
preface of the American Version, page vii, we find this entry: 
“The latter [‘‘shall”] is certainly used to excess in the Authorized 
Version, especially when connected with verbs denoting an action 

27 


28 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


of the Divine Being.” Professor J. H. Moulton, in his grammar 
of New Testament Greek, says, “The use of ‘shall’ where prophecy 
is dealing with future time is particularly unfortunate.” 

Now let us read Genesis iii:16, substituting “will” for “shall”: 
“T will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow 
thou wilt bring forth children: and thy desire will be to thy hus- 
band, and he will rule over thee.” 

But this passage, as it appears in our current Versions of Scrip- 
ture, merits further criticism. Dr. Katharine Bushnell, who has 
given years to critical study and research of the Bible teachings 
concerning women, calls attention to another mistranslation. The 
last clause of Genesis iii:16, in modern Versions of Scripture, 
reads: “Thy desire (mp3wm) shall be to thy husband, and he shall 
rule over thee.” Dr. Bushnell renders as follows: “Thou art 
turning away to thy husband, and he will rule over thee.” She 
submits the following facts in support of such rendering: 

(1) This is the reading of the Septuagint. Of this Version 
Dean Stanley says, “If there ever was a translation which, by 
means of its importance, rose to a level with the original, it was 
this.’ The Septuagint was made for the great library at Alex- 
andria about 285 B.c. by Israelites preéminent for scholarship. 
Naturally their knowledge of Hebrew would surpass that of any 
modern student. It is a matter of weight that these translators 
‘ rendered the Hebrew word mpiwm, of Genesis 11:16, d&rocteépw 
in the Septuagint. Now there can be no question as to the meaning 
of the Greek word @roctoeépu. It signifies, “to turn away.” 

(2) The Peshito, 200 a.p., renders mpiwm, Genesis iii :16, “wilt 
turn.” All the other ancient Versions—Samaritan, 200 A.p.; The 
Old Latin, 200 a.p.; Sahidic, 300 a.p.; Bohairic, 350 A.D.; Athio- 
pic, 500 A.D., render “turning.” 

(3) In the sixteenth century an Italian Dominican monk, named 
Pagnino, published his translation of the Hebrew Bible. Influ- 
enced by the teachings of the Talmud—the bane of the Jewish 
race—he rendered Apiwm, “lust.” Aside from the two Vulgate 
Versions, every English translation since the time of Pagnino has 
followed his example, making AP w import “lust,” or sensual 
desire. The offensiveness of this rendering becomes apparent 


WAS IT PROPHECY? 29 


when we apply it to Genesis iv:7, where God says to Cain: “Unto 
thee shall be his desire (Ap3wm) and thou shalt rule over him.” 
Here we have the same word as in Genesis iii:16, and aside from 
the change of person and gender, the same construction. In the 


word npiwn, itself, there is no suggestion of libidinousness. It is “* 


an attachment forced upon it by carnal minds. 

It seems to the author that Dr. Bushnell’s contention for the 
rendering, “thou art turning~away to thy husband, and he will 
rule over thee,” is well supported. 

We are now considering Genesis 111:16 as a prophecy. Has it 
had fulfillment? Did the entrance of sin bring about the dethrone- 
ment of woman? Has her sorrow and her conception been multi- 
plied? Did her turning away to her husband result in her subju- 
gation? Yes—a thousand times, Yes! The earth has been swept 
by her sighs and watered by her tears; the atmosphere has been 
burdened with her cries of anguish; her tears, if gathered together, 
would make a great salt sea; her sighs, if merged, would rock the 
globe with cyclonic power ; her pangs, if concentrated, would strike 
creation dumb with horror. Her body has been tortured by lust 
and cruelty, her spirit buffeted by wrong and oppression, and her 
heart the very seat of agony ever since sin entered the world. 

Adam’s second recorded utterance after the Fall was an accusa- 
tion against his wife: “The woman Thou gavest to be with me, 
she gave to me, and I did eat.” He turns against her with crimi- 
nations, and charges her with the guilt of both. 

The entrance of sin into the world generated fiendish passions 
in the soul; might supplanted right, and woman, being of more 
delicate mold, became the victim. The historian has never lived 
who could chronicle all her wrongs or tabulate half her woes. 
The trend of her pathway from Eden was precipitantly downward. 
She became a chattel,—an object of barter or sale, a toy or a slave, 
subject to every whim of her lord and master. Even her life was 
at his disposal. Man-made religions reckoned her a soulless crea- 
ture,—or, if she had a soul, her hope of future existence hinged 
on her alliance with some man; a cipher, of no consequence when 
she stood alone; counted only when ranged by the side of some 
masculine figure to enhance, not her own, but his value. 


30 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


Travel back in thought a single century, and see strong men 
dragging the shrieking Hindoo widow to the funeral pyre of her 
husband; see the son applying the torch to consume the form that 
in agony gave him birth. Visit the zenanas and gaze on multi- 
tudes of sad-faced women whose lungs are never fanned by fresh 
air; whose eyes are never gladdened by the sunshine, and whose 
feet never in a lifetime, tread the green earth. See thousands of 
child-wives, dragging their lust-crippled bodies after babes whose 
power of locomotion is greater than their own. Behold millions 
of child-widows, clad in a single coarse garment, sleeping on stone 
floors, starving on one sparse meal a day, subjected to untold 
abuse, undergoing such infliction because in their helpless childhood 
they were sold in marriage to decrepit men who died before them. 

Go to China where the lot of a wife was so unbearable that 
nine out of ten attempted suicide. Hear the sobs and cries of 
little daughters, undergoing the tortures of foot-binding; see 
thousands of girl babes cast at nightfall into trenches and gutters 
to be devoured by hogs and dogs, and where in the dawn of the 
morning, keepers of houses of prostitution searched for such as 
had escaped the rapacity of these scavengers, and carried them 
away to be reared as inmates of their dens of infamy. 

Go to Turkey, where woman was doomed to lifelong imprison- 
ment in the harem; where she was held to be a soulless creature, 
and where her span of life was measured by the will of her hus- 
band. A woman in Turkey, when asked what her life was, replied, 
“Our life is hell.” 

Go to Japan, where woman was taught that it was praiseworthy 
to barter virtue to maintain male relatives in idleness; where 
daughters were blinded to make them successful fortune-tellers ; 
where young girls were tricked in finery and exposed in iron 
cages, to be hired or purchased by lecherous passers-by. Go to 
the interior of the Island Empire, where women served instead of 
horses to draw lumber across the mountains. 

Even in America, the Indian squaw staggered under the weight 
of tent and furniture, while the stalwart brave stalked before, 
bearing tomahawk, bow, and scalping-knife. 

Wherever we turn our eyes there is an appalling record of woe. 


WAS IT PROPHECY? 31 


Multiply all this by thousands of years, and then compute, if you 
can, the sum total of agony that has pressed down on woman’s 
heart since the gates of ‘Paradise Lost” closed behind her. 

If she had not been essential to the propagation of the race, it 
is a question if man’s malignity would not have accomplished her 
extinction. 

Karl Heinzen says: “If children could have been brought into 
the world by a mill, or some other kind of machine, the Spartans 
would have abolished women, and introduced in their place State 
child factories.” 

Woman was spared in order that she might mother men. As 
the astute Irishman remarked, “If there were no wimmen, the world 
would come to an ind in two or three jinerations.” 

It is true that we have journeyed away from much of the bar- 
barism of the past. The condition of woman, even in heathen 
lands, has been ameliorated. Pagan monarchs no longer pave the 
driveways to their palaces with the skulls of young virgins; wives 
are no longer buried alive, nor widows burned on the funeral pyre 
of their husbands; maidens are not today offered in sacrifice on 
heathen altars, but we are not as far on the road of progress as 
we should be, nor as we will be, when we come to a clearer under- 
standing of Sacred Writ and “think God’s thoughts after Him.” 

There are few countries, even at this late day, that do not, in 
some way, discriminate against woman. A few years since, Mrs. 
Carrie Chapman Catt, after a tour around the world, wrote: “In 
less civilized countries, women are forced to bear up under hard- 
ships that their husbands would not force a horse to undergo.” 
According to this writer, in Japan they carry huge trunks on their 
backs; in Russia they carry bags of coal on their heads; in China 
they support their husbands by transporting passengers to and from 
the docks; in the Far East they bend almost double cultivating 
rice in water up to their knees; in India they do the planting, while 
their husbands sit in the shade; in Java they peddle and support 
their husbands in idleness; in Holland the wife is harnessed with 
the dog to draw heavy loads; in Germany she is hitched with the 
cow to do the ploughing, or with a dog or donkey to pull the cart of 
produce to market. 


32 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


So late as the nineteenth century, British newspapers commented 
on the sale of wives as of common occurrence. In 1803 a man 
sold his wife as a cow in the Sheffield market for a guinea; 1808, 
a man sold his wife in Knaresborough for a sixpence and a quid 
of tobacco; 1815, a man held a regular auction in the market-place 
at Pontefract, offering his wife at a minimum bidding of one 
shilling, and “knocked her down” for eleven shillings; 1820, a man 
named Browchet led his wife into the cattle-market at Canterbury. 
The salesman informed him he was dealing with cattle and not 
with women. Thereupon the man hired a pen for the usual fee 
of sixpence, and led his wife into it with a halter. Soon after he 
sold her to a young man for five shillings; 1858, a man by the 
name of Horton sold his wife in a beer-shop. He announced the 
sale beforehand by means of a bellman. 

Not only has human law, in a thousand ways, discriminated 
against woman, but custom lent its aid in her oppression. 
Whenever she ventured into activities outside the home, she was 
scourged by public opinion. Only menial employment was allowed 
her. She might toil with the needle, bend at the washtub or handle 
the scrub-brush—these were feminine engagements—but if she 
aspired to a clerkship, cast her eyes on a professor’s chair, edged 
her way toward the pulpit or dreamed of a doctor’s degree, hands 
were raised in holy horror, a thousand tongues berated her. She 
was getting out of her sphere; unsexing herself. She was ostra- 
cized, dubbed “strong-minded,” “short-haired,” etc. Chosen voca- 
tions were for the sterner sex. 

Sappho, “the world’s greatest poetess,” was made the butt of 
ridicule by the satirists of Athens. A renowned writer of modern 
times says: “Of all the poets who have appeared on the earth, 
Sappho was undoubtedly the greatest.” The noble and gifted 
Hypatia was assaulted by the mob, stripped naked in the streets of 
Alexandria by Cyril’s monks, and dragged to the church, where 
she was killed by the club of Peter the Reader, for the heinous 
offense of teaching mathematics and the philosophy of Plato and 
Aristotle. Others, like Aspasia, not assaulted physically, had their 
moral character assailed. 

But one does not have to travel back to antiquity to find biased 


WAS IT PROPHECY? 33 


judgment on this question. Mary Summerville, astronomer, phys- 
icist and scientific writer, hid her books and papers when her 
neighbors called in order to escape their ridicule. Her pastor 
denounced her from the pulpit. 

_ Lucy Stone’s father sent his sons to college, but when his daugh- 
ter craved like opportunity, he exclaimed, “The girl must be crazy,” 
and denied her a penny. She gathered and sold berries to buy 
books and to pay her passage. She slept among the grain-sacks 
when crossing the lake because her means would not allow a berth 
in a stateroom. She matriculated at Oberlin—the only college in 
the country that opened its doors to women. When the time for 
her graduation arrived, the authorities informed her she could not 
read her thesis—some man must perform this service for her. 
She indignantly refused, and the thesis remained unread. On her 
return home she presented her diploma to her father ; he wrathfully 
hurled it across the room. When she appeared on the lecture 
platform, she was repeatedly mobbed. On one occasion a hose was 
turned against her; she drew her shawl more closely about her 
slender form and continued her address, notwithstanding the dis- 
comfort of the shower-bath. In Boston she was advertised to 
speak at an anti-slavery meeting. Announcement was sent to the 
various churches, One orthodox clergyman voiced his disapproval 
in these words: “A hen will attempt to crow like a cock in the 
town hall at four o’clock this afternoon. Those who enjoy that 
kind of music will attend the meeting.” 

When Elizabeth Blackwell—the first woman physician in the 
United States—entered a medical school, her garments were torn 
and her books defaced by the male students; women in the board- 
ing-house refused to speak to her, while others of her sex drew 
aside their garments as they passed her on the street. These are 
a few examples out of thousands. 

When woman sought an education, she found almost all the 
higher institutions of learning bolted against her. Even schools 
of lower grade discouraged female education. A school board in 
Massachusetts adopted a resolution declaring it a waste of public 
funds to teach girls “the back part of the arithmetic.” One school 
only admitted girls after the boys had finished the day’s lessons. 


34 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


It is a matter of history what ridicule and opposition Mary Lyons 
encountered in her first effort for the education of her sex. Dr. 
Gregory’s “Legacy to My Daughters” was commended in all 
boarding-schools for girls. The following is his advice: “If you 
happen to have any learning, keep it a profound secret, especially 
from men, who look with jealous, malignant eye on a woman of 
great parts and a cultivated understanding.” 

Margaret Fuller shocked public taste in Boston by sitting down 
in a public library to read a book. 

As soon as a woman stepped outside her home to achieve along 
lines not entirely domestic, she met the scourge of public opinion. 
Not only did she encounter the difficulties that ordinarily lie in the 
pathway of success, but in addition she faced opposition and 
insult. Some heroic souls proved equal to the undertaking, but 
who can compute the thousands who shrunk back and submitted 
to injustice? 

Woman encountered ostracism when she sought to enter busi- 
ness. Emily Faithful opened a printing establishment in England 
and employed women. So violent was the opposition that only 
the patronage of Queen Victoria saved the enterprise from dis- 
aster. A man in Saco, Maine, employed a saleswoman. Men 
boycotted his store and women remonstrated with him for placing 
a member of their sex in a position of such publicity. 

When woman at last made her way into the various industries, 
she was discriminated against in the matter of wages. Employers 
scouted at “equal pay for equal work” when applied to women. 
The author can vouch for the following: “A certain professor was 
employed by the Board of the Pittsburgh High School to teach 
Latin at a salary of $1,300 per annum. He proved incompetent 
and was transferred to another department. A capable woman 
was chosen as his successor. She gave entire satisfaction, but when 
the question of remuneration came before the Board, it voted her 
a salary of $700. She remonstrated and reminded the members 
that her predecessor, although incompetent, had received $1,300. 
The only answer given was: “It is not customary to pay a 
woman as much as a man.” Having an aged father and mother 


WAS IT PROPHECY? 35 


depending on her for support, she was forced to acquiesce in the 
Board’s decision. 

The report of the Commission of Education for 1912 shows the 
average salary of male teachers in the United States to be $73.86 
per month; for female teachers, $54.98. There is no charge that 
the work of these women is not up to the standard. The discrimi- 
nation rests solely on a sex basis. The teaching profession is not 
singular in this matter. The rule holds throughout the realm of 
industry, except in isolated instances where the ballot in the hands 
of women has wrought change by act of legislation. 

For long centuries the production of a woman’s hand or brain, 
no matter what its merit, was at a discount. A woman’s name 
placed on a commodity cheapened it. If she invented anything 
or made a scientific discovery, the world too often placed the 
laurels on the brow of another. It is now quite certain that 
Aspasia wrote part, if not all, the famous oration Pericles pro- 
nounced over the fallen Athenians. Fannie Mendelssohn’s 
musical compositions were accredited to her brother. Catherine 
Herschell discovered eight comets, numerous clusters of stars and 
nebulz which were listed as Sir William’s. Catherine Green was 
the true inventor of the cotton gin. She conceived and communi- 
cated her ideas to Eli Whitney. When the latter reached the point 
where he was ready to abandon the enterprise, Mrs. Green came 
to his aid with the one essential that insured success. Ten days 
later the invention was given to the world in the name of Eli 
Whitney. The sewing-machine was unrealized until Mrs. Howe 
convinced her husband that the eye could be placed at the point 
of the needle. Marie Sklodowska Curie was the real discoverer 
of radium. Husband and wife pursued their studies together, but 
again and again the former was ready to abandon the research. 
Madam Curie persisted, and it was her eye that first detected the 
precious substance. The French Legion of Honor tendered Pierre 
Curie membership in recognition of the discovery, but closed its 
doors to his wife on the ground of sex. 

In the domain of literature, women of genius at times adopted 
masculine pseudonyms to escape the prejudice which would depre- 
ciate the market value of their productions. Marion Evans wrote 


36 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


under the name of George Eliot; Charlotte Bronté disguised her- 
self as Currer Bell; Mary Abigail Dodge chose the nom-de-plume, 
Gail Hamilton; Alice Mary Durand that of Henry Greville; 
Madame Dudevant subscribed herself George Sand; Marie Agoult 
as Daniel Stern. These women were not masculine; they were 
discerning. ‘They read the sentiment of the age and understood 
full well that their productions would find more ready acceptance 
if given to the world under the authorship of man. 

Every fair-minded reader must acknowledge that, aside from 
the matriarchal period and under the First Jewish Commonwealth, 
woman has not received just recognition. The world has had the 
habit of overlooking her sacrifices and achievements; it has denied 
her a “square deal.’’ This is exemplified in the history of our own 
country. For more than a century we have chanted the praises 
of the Pilgrim Fathers, and it is well; but were there not fore- 
mothers as well as forefathers? 


All hail to the Pilgrim women, 
Who sailed o’er the briny sea; 
Who cabined in lonely forests, 
To mother a nation free; 
Who nestled their slumbering infants 
With the wolf-cry in their ear; 
Nor quailed at the savage war-whoop; 
Who faced the famine drear. 
The women who handled the distaff, 
Or planted the new-made field; 
Who aided in rearing the block-house, 
Or musket or sword could. wield. 
The women who kept lone vigil, 
When husbands and sons were slain, 
Who dauntless faced each danger, 
And shared each toil and pain. 
Who planted and garnered the harvest, 
While men were off to the war, 
Who tended and nursed the wounded, 
And fought the foe at the door. 
Are their struggles not worth remembering, 
These women so brave, so true? 
O Heroic Pilgrim mothers, 
We offer a meed to you. 


Notwithstanding the obstacles placed in the pathway of woman 
down through the centuries, notwithstanding the atmosphere of 
prejudice that enveloped her, the talent within her again and again 


WAS IT PROPHECY? 37 


asserted itself with distinction. Profane history records the name 
of Semiramis, illustrious warrior and builder ; Sappho, “the world’s 
greatest poetess,’ who invented a new measure in lyric poetry; 
Artemesia, Queen of Halicarnassus, who commanded her own fleet 
in battle, and whose skill and courage brought her renown; Aspasia, 
a woman of such splendid genius that Pericles was proud to call 
her friend, and Socrates to profess himself her disciple; Telesilla, 
the poetess, who saved Argos by her courage; Hipparchia, whose 
thirst for knowledge was so great that she consented to marry a 
deformed cynic in order to make attainment in philosophy and 
other branches of learning; Phantasia, who wrote a poem on the 
Trojan war of such merit that Homer himself was willing to 
utilize it; Cornelia, who gave public lectures on philosophy in 
Rome, and of whom Cicero said: “Cornelia, had she not been a 
woman, would have deserved first place among philosophers.” 
These women lived and achieved before the dawn of the Chris- 
tian era. 

While we have illustrious examples in both sacred and profane 
history of women who rose superior to their environments, they 
were but lights against a woefully black background. The mass 
of women were kept in subjugation, Every door of egress was 
barred. There was but one policy toward them, and that was 
repression. ‘Their sorrows and their conceptions were multiplied. 
Their turning was unto their husbands, who ruled over them— 
more often than otherwise, with rigor. History proves beyond 
question, that Genesis iii:16 has had certain and awful fulfillment. 


III 
GENESIS III:16: WAS IT PENALTY? 


HERE are many who reject in toto the line of reasoning 
presented in the preceding chapter; who hold that Genesis 


iii:16 was not a prophecy, but a penalty imposed upon 
woman because of her part in the transgression. The author dis- 
sents from such view because it involves us in serious theological 
difficulty ; it brings us into conflict with well-established principles 
of moral law. 

Penalty presupposes guilt; it postulates wrongdoing on the part 
of the one who suffers the infliction. To charge that the Almighty 
imposed a penalty on womankind, in general, because of the indi- 
vidual act of the foremother of the race is to asperse the Divine 
character. To penalize a sex for the wrongdoing of a single fore- 
bear does not accord with the principles of justice. The conse- 
quences of sin are far-reaching, and extend from generation to 
generation, but the guilt of sin is not transmissible; it attaches only 
to the actual offender. Ancestors may by wrongdoing involve 
their descendants in disaster, but they cannot by any modus 
operand: attaint them with their guilt. What share had that 
Hindoo widow in Eve’s transgression? There may be a chain of 
cause and effect reaching direct from the Tree of the knowledge 
of good and evil to that funeral pyre, but no law, human or divine, 
will allow that sinner in Eden to unload, even in part, her guilt on 
the hapless victim whose writhing form feeds the flame. 

The proponents of this dogma would have us believe that 
Jehovah God—one of whose attributes is Justice—marshaled an 
entire sex before His tribunal and sentenced it to subjugation; to 
multiplied sorrow and conception all in penalty for the wrong- 
doing of one who lived in the day-dawn of human existence, and 
in whose guilt the sex in general had no share. 

To impose penalty on offspring for the transgression of a fore- 

38 


WAS IT PENALTY? 39 


parent was prohibited by Divine edict. “What mean ye, that ye 
use this proverb in the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have 
eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge? As 
I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to 
use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul 
of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that 
sinneth, it shall die. But if a man be just, and do that which is 
lawful and right ... he shall not die for the iniquity of his 
father, he shall surely live” (Eze. xviii:2, 5,17). “The son shall 
not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the 
iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be 
upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him” 
(Eze. xvili:20). “The fathers shall not be put to death for the 
children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: 
every man shall be put to death for his own sin” (Deut. xxiv:16). 
Innocence is a sure defense in the court of Divine justice. 
“Didst thou eat?” is the unfailing question from “the Judge of all 
the earth.” Penalty is proportionate to guilt, and where no guilt 
attaches, acquittal is assured. God is not blindfolded; by Him, 
actions and motives are weighed, and the scales hold even in His 
hand. 
- It may be objected that such line of reasoning sets at naught 
_ the Scriptural teaching as to the vicarious sufferings of Christ. 


« Not so. There is no parallel. Christ’s death was expiatory, but 


His was a willing sacrifice. He “emptied Himself.” ‘“He humbled 
Himself, becoming obedient unto death, yea, the death of the 
cross” (Phil. ii:7, 8). “Therefore doth the Father love Me, be- 
cause I lay down My life, that I might take it again. No one 
taketh it away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have 
power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it again” (John 
x:17, 18). “Christ also loved us and gave Himself for us, an 
offering and a sacrifice to God” (Eph. v:2). “He offered up 
Himself” (Heb. vii:27). “Who loved me and gave Himself for 
me” (Gal. ii:20). “Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who gave Himself 
for our sins” (Gal. i:4). “Christ Jesus, Who gave Himself a 
ransom for all” (I Tim. ii:6). “Himself took our infirmities and 
bear our diseases” (Matt. viii:17). “Who gave Himself for us, 


40 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


that He might redeem us from all iniquity” (Titus ii:14). To rob 
Christ’s sacrificial death of its voluntariness is to subvert the very 
foundations of Divine justice. 

Human, as well as Divine law, recognizes substitution, but it 
must ever be with the concurrence of the substitute. To inflict 
punishment on the innocent, apart from his consent, is nothing 
less than rank injustice. To elect to suffer for the wrongdoing 
of another is an exhibition of supreme devotion. The gift of self 
outweighs all others. One whom we love may infract human law 
and be haled before a court of justice; a penalty, involving years 
of pain and sacrifice, may be imposed; love may impel us to offer 
ourself as substitute, and there is no miscarriage of justice when 
such offer is accepted. Love counts it not a sacrifice, but a privi- 
lege to suffer for its object, and deems it hard to be denied. 

During the French Revolution, a father and son were thrown 
into a crowded prison. When the jailers entered and announced 
the names of those appointed unto death, the father answered for 
his son, and was led to execution. “Greater love hath no man 
than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.” 

A missionary in China had in his employ a faithful native 
servant. One day this young man gave notice that his services 
must terminate. When pressed for the reason, he informed the 
missionary that a certain rich man had been condemned to death, 
and, as the law of the country allowed, had offered a large sum of 
money for a substitute. The young man’s parents were poor and 
he had resolved to die in the rich man’s stead, in order that his 
aged father and mother might have the comforts of life in their 
declining years. 

When the young patriot, Nathan Hale, was brought to execu- 
tion, his last words were, ‘“‘My only regret is that I have but one 
life to offer my country.” If human love can thus endure, how 
much more Divine? “He loved us, and gave Himself for us.” 
Louder than the shoutings of the rabble; louder than the sentence 
that falls from the Roman Governor’s lips; louder than the sneers 
and jeers of mocking priests and scribes and elders, who passed 
His cross with wagging heads, ring out the words of the Divine 
Christ, as He yields His life “an offering and a sacrifice to God”— 


WAS IT PENALTY? Al 


“No one taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have 
power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” This 
is the answer to every charge of injustice urged against the vicari- 
ous atonement. 

But no such sentiment has animated the womanhood of the 
world in its relation to Eve’s transgression; never has the sex 
elected, in jointure or in severalty, to bear, or even share, the 
penalty imposed upon her; never has a daughter of the fore- 
mother offered herself in “willing sacrifice.’ Mingled with her 
birth-pangs and her heart-pangs has been a burning sense of injus- 
tice, and no robed priest, standing within the chancel, proclaiming 
the dogma of transmitted penalty, can make it otherwise. 

It may be urged that the words of Jehovah, as recorded, imply 
Divine agency in the infliction of punishment on the sufferer. 
The pronoun is in the first person singular: “I will greatly multiply 
thy sorrow and thy conception.” The chastisement is of Divine 
ordering, and man, in his sinful estate, is the foreordained exe- 
cutioner. Let all who will, take comfort in such thought. It cannot 
be denied that, in the past, mankind in general has felt itself 
empowered, from some source, to administer reproof and correc- 
tion to womankind, and no one who has studied history with 
impartial mind can charge that the administrators have erred on 
the side of leniency. Too often have the stripes exceeded the 
appointed number. The writer does not subscribe to the tenet that 
a just and righteous Being willed the subjugation and affliction of 
an entire sex in penalty for wrongdoing of a forebear, and com- 
mitted the execution of His will to a creature whose “every imagi- 
nation of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” 
We must find an explanation that does not derogate the Divine 
character. “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy concep- 
tion,’ is not the only passage in the Bible that perplexes. It 
belongs in a class with the following: “The Lord hardened the 
heart of Pharaoh” (Ex. ix:12). “The Lord thy God hardened 
his spirit, and made his heart obstinate” (Deut. ii:30). “I make 
peace, and create evil, J am Jehovah that doeth all these things” 
(Isa. xlv:7). “The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of 
all these thy prophets” (I Kings xxii:23). “For this cause they 


42 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


could not believe, for Isaiah said again: He hath blinded their 
eyes, and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their 
eyes, and perceive with their hearts, and should turn and I should 
heal them” (John xii:40). “He hath mercy on whom He will, 
and whom He will, He hardeneth’ (Rom. ix:18). “God gave 
them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears 
that they should not hear” (Rom. xi:8). “God gave unto them 
a reprobate mind” (Rom. i:28). “They know not, neither do they 
consider; for He hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and 
their hearts, that they cannot understand” (Isa. xliv:18). 

We would not cut such passages from the Bible with a penknife, 
but we must find an explanation that will bring them into harmony 
with the Divine character; we must interpret “according to the 
analogy of faith.” Who of us believe that God entices to evil? 
That He instigates the violation of His law, and then punishes the 
offender? That He incites to wrongdoing, and then inflicts penalty 
on the wrongdoer? That He blinds the individual, then castigates 
for not seeing? That He deafens, then afflicts for not hearing? 
That He hardens the heart, then damns the impenitent? Who 
that reads the Christian’s Bible for a moment harbors such belief ? 

Over against these stern utterances must be placed such assur- 
ances as these: “God is love” (I John iv:8). “His mercy endureth 
for ever” (Ps. cxiii:1). “He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve 
the children of men” (Lam. iii:33). ‘He knoweth our frame, 
He remembereth that we are dust” (Ps. ciii:14). “Let no man 
say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot 
be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempteth no man; but each 
man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and 
enticed. Then the lust when it hath conceived, beareth sin; and 
the sin, when it is full-grown, bringeth forth death” (James 
1:13-15). “Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts as the Egyp- 
tians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts?” (I Sam. vi:6). “But 
when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart” 
(Ex. viii:15). 

God ordains laws, physical and moral, for the highest welfare 
of His creatures. Observance of these laws never works disaster. 
Man is a free moral agent; he elects to violate, and overwhelms 


WAS IT PENALTY? 43 


himself with evil consequences. Who is the author of his woe? 
The Being Who institutes with benevolent intent, or the individual 
who in perverseness disregards His mandates? In one sense, God, 
in that He decrees the enactment; in another and stricter sense, 
man, in that he violates the provisions for his welfare. Not law, 
but repudiation of law, brings disaster. “The law is holy, and the 
commandment is holy, and righteous, and good.” Its purpose is 
to safeguard. Is a thing evil because God prohibits it “malum 
prohibitum”’? or does He prohibit it because it is evil “malum in 
se’? The author assents to the latter view. Divine interdictions 
are danger signals; they point out the spots where calamity awaits. 
It needed no arbitrary ruling on the part of the Almighty to plunge 
Adam and Eve—and through them the race—into a vortex of 
misfortune. They sinned, and “sin, when it is full-grown, bringeth 
forth death.” Sin is never barren; as oft as the “season comes 
round,” sin brings forth monstrous children. 

It is of interest to know that Dr. Katharine Bushnell rejects the 
rendering: “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow,” and substitutes 
the following: “A snare (or “lying-in-wait”) hath increased thy 
sorrow.” She comments thus: “The word here used in Genesis 
(FAD N) originally stood as DN, since, in either case, the final 
letter is merely a vowel-letter; and 378 is the more ancient and 
more common word for ‘lying-in-wait.’ As a participial noun 
it occurs fourteen times in ‘Joshua’ and ‘Judges’ alone. Finite 
forms of the verb ‘to lie-in-wait’ occur over twenty times in the 
Old Testament.” 

Dr. Bushnell reminds us that the vowel letters 8, A,» 1, were 
not a part of the original Hebrew, but were a later addition by 
the scribes to assist in pronunciation. Her rendering makes Satan, 
not Jehovah God, the author of woman’s woe. 

Dr. Bushnell further rejects the rendering “conception.” We 
quote her words: “The ‘sentence,’ ‘J will multiply . . . thy concep- 
tion, has wrought terrible havoc with the health and happiness of 
wives; because, so read, it has been understood to rob woman of 
the right to determine when she should become a mother, and to 
place that right outside her will and in abeyance to the will of her 
husband—at least, the law has been read thus, because of its con- 


44 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


nection with what follows in this passage. This word is spelled, 
in Hebrew, HRN (]77) ,—but that is not the correct Hebrew way 
to spell ‘conception.’ The word occurs, and is correctly spelled, in 
Ruth 4:13 and Hosea 9:11, and nowhere else. The real word 
‘conception,’ as it occurs in the above passages, is spelled HRJWN 
Gyan)-+ This word in ‘Genesis’ comes two letters short of spelling 
the word. All Hebrew scholars know this. For instance, Spurrell 
says: ‘It is an abnormal formation, which occurs nowhere else in 
the Old Testament.’ Our highest lexical authorities (Brown, 
Briggs and Driver) call it a ‘contraction, or erroneous.’ Indeed! 
and is one-half the human family to be placed at the mercy of the 
other half on such a flimsy claim as this! So could Rehoboam 
have sent a man to the gallows, instead of sending him to the jail, by 
such a method of manipulating the law. We stand for our rights, 
as women, on the assurance of our Lord, that no word in Divine 
law has lost any of its consonants; or angles of a consonant; and 
on our Lord’s promise we demand a very different rendering of 
the word. While it is possible that the w () of this word might 
be omitted in this particular formation, the J () is a consonant of 
the root, and cannot be lost or omitted, particularly at the end of a 
phrase where the voice pauses or rests for a while upon it; such 
is the Hebrew rule in an instance like this. The Septuagint gives 


* - i; the correct reading here, which is, ‘thy sighing’—the whole sen- 
»9f) tence meaning, then, ‘A snare hath increased thy sorrow and thy 


sighing ” (God's Word to Women, vol. i, lesson 15, sec. 120, I2T). 
A question may arise in some minds—What matters it whether 
Genesis i11:16 be a prophecy or a penalty, so long as results are 
practically the same? There is an intrinsic difference the thought- 
ful mind will not overlook. Prophecy foresees; penalty fore- 
ordains: prophecy says, “It will be”; penalty says, “It shall be.” 
There is also marked contrast in the psychological impress. Tell 
an individual that the injustice he suffers is the arbitrary ordering 
of a Supreme Will, and you stir within him a feeling of resent- 
ment; tell that same individual that these wrongs have befallen — 
because of disordered moral conditions, and he not only braces 
himself to endure, but sets to work to remedy. Tell womankind 
that the Almighty has allotted her the woes that have overtaken 


WAS IT PENALTY? 45 


her; that He has meted out for her cruelty and injustice; that He 
has apportioned her pangs and heartaches—that all this is of Divine 
ordering because of the misdeed of her primal ancestor, and the 
soul within her rankles at such announcement. But tell her, on 
the other hand, that not God, but man, with sin-hardened heart, 
has willed her oppression; that when truth shall vanquish error, 
and right shall triumph over might, there will come a surcease of 
her sorrow—tell her this, and you inspire hope within her down- 
cast soul, and implant within her a strong purpose to surmount 
injustice, and to struggle for the overthrow of wrong. 

A question pertinent to the matter under discussion is suggested 
here. What was there in the behavior of Adam on the occasion 
of the Fall that merited sex exaltation? Was he less culpable than 
Eve? We have the Pauline assertion that he was not deceived 
(I Tim. ii:14). Eve, on the contrary, was beguiled. Is the high- 
handed transgressor to have precedence? Is the deliberate wrong- 
doer to be rewarded with supremacy? Also, the stress of tempta- 
tion must be taken into consideration in meting out justice. Eve 
yielded to the assault of a supernatural being; Adam, on the other 
hand, succumbed to the solicitation of a “weaker vessel.” Again, 
Adam’s demeanor when confronted by Jehovah, borders on de- 
fiance. We are startled at the daring of his answer: “The woman 
that Thou gavest to be with me, she gave to me, and I did eat.” 
He responds with a counter-charge, and poses as being himself 
agerieved. God and woman are joint-authors of his downfall. 
His arrogance is rewarded with sex supremacy. Before he sinned, 
he shared dominion with his wife; now he is empowered to subju- 
gate her, and to rule henceforth as sole sovereign “over every 
living thing that moveth upon the earth.” Surely the propagandists 
of such dogma face some knotty problems. 

A fact overlooked or ignored by many expounders of Sacred 
Writ is this: If the subordination of woman were a penalty im- 
posed because of her transgression, then it had no place in the 
Divine economy prior to the Fall. Penalty cannot antedate the 
infraction of the law. This, beyond peradventure, establishes the 
equality of the sexes at creation. The dogma of man’s ascendancy 
over woman “from the beginning,’ and the claim that Genesis 


46 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


iii:16 is a penalty, are exclusive one of the other. Another diff- 
culty confronts us. If Eve’s posterity were penalized for her 
transgression, how came it that the male half was exempted? Were 
not her sons, in the same manner, and in the same measure, re- 
sponsible for the sin of the fore-mother? Why should they escape 
while the daughters were made to suffer? Nor is that all. Women, 
as well as men, were penalized for Adam’s infraction of Divine 
law. Romans v:12 we read: “Through one man sin entered into 
the world, and death through sin.” In verse fourteen the Apostle 
names Adam as the one who introduced death into the world: 


“So death passed unto all men” (d&vOeunx0uc). The word here 
translated “men,” is not ¢vne, which would indicate the male sex, 


but év8ewxoc, which is generic, and includes both sexes. Ac- 
quaintance with theological literature has failed to reveal to the 
author a single redactor who so much as intimates that Adam was 
representative of the male sex alone in the matter of transgression. 
All with one accord impartially impute his sin to male and female. 
Now, why, we ask, must womankind stagger under this double 
allotment? Why must she suffer for Eve’s transgression, and 
also for Adam’s, while the male half of humankind escapes with 
a single portion? In truth neither Genesis 111:16 nor Genesis 
i11:17-IQ were penalties. They were forecastings of the conse- 
quences of sin. The penalty announced is recorded in Genesis 
11:17, “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Eve 
said to the tempter: “Of the fruit of the tree which is in the 
midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither 
shall ye touch it, lest ye die.” The one penalty named in Romans 
v:12-21, is death. Also in I Corinthians xv:22. “Through one 
man sin entered into the world, and death through sin... so 
death passed unto all men.” “By the trespass of the one, the 
many died.” “Death reigned through the one.” “In Adam all 
die.” The penalty announced was not the subordination of woman, 
nor man’s assignment to unproductive farming, but death. “The 
wages of sin is death,” and this passed alike to male and female. 
But let us, for the time being, waive all objections to the penalty 
theory, and meet its advocates on their own ground. Let us for 


WAS IT PENALTY? 47 


argument’s sake concede that Divine fiat consigned Eve to subordi- 
nate relation; that Jehovah God willed the multiplication of her 
sorrow and conception, and that her desire should be to her hus- 
band, and that he should rule over her. Let us study Genesis 
111:16, not as a prophecy, but as a penalty. 

Here we have what many are pleased to call “the curse,” put 
upon woman for her part in the transgression. We call attention 
to the fact that the word “curse” is not used in application to 
Adam or Eve. The Almighty uttered no malediction on the guilty 
pair. He cursed the serpent, and He cursed the ground for man’s 
sake, but He did not execrate Adam or Eve. Even the curse on 
the ground was revoked after the Deluge (Gen. viii:21). Penalty 
and curse are not synonymous terms. We have elsewhere in this 
chapter noted that penalty implies guilt, and must in equity be 
confined to the actual transgressor. If Genesis iii:16 is a penalty, 
it must in justice attach to Eve, and to her alone, without entail- 
ment on her offspring. The text is in harmony with this conten- 
tion. The address is direct, and to the second person singular: 
“T will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow 
thou shalt bring forth children and thy desire shall be to thy hus- 
band and he will rule over thee.’ Under ordinary circumstances 
“thy,” “thou,” and “thee” are not accounted generic; they apply 
to the individual addressed without further inclusion. One must 
read between the lines to extend the sentence to future generations. 

Every fair-minded person will concede that if Genesis iii:16 is 
a penalty, then Genesis iii:17-I19 must be a penalty also. “And 
unto Adam He said, Because thou hast harkened to the voice of 
thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, 
saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake: 
. . . thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee: and thou 
shalt eat the herb of the field: in the sweat of thy face shalt thou 
eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast 
thou taken: for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.” 

Here, as in the other case, the sentence is pronounced in the 
second person singular, without intimation of its inclusion of 
posterity. However, through the centuries theologians have main- 
tained the representative character of Adam and Eve—they stood 


48 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


forthe race. It is foreign to our purpose to enter into discussion 
of this dogma; we prefer, for the time being, to yield the point, 
and to find our vantage-ground elsewhere. Now we have the 
guilty pair at the bar of Divine justice, and each, as representative 
of posterity, receives sentence. Adam, and through him, every 
male descendant, is condemned to lifelong sorrow and hard labor: 
Eve, and through her womankind in general, is placed in subordi- 
nate relation to her husband and doomed to multiplied sorrow, 
conception and childbearing. We follow the sexes down through 
the centuries, and what do we find? We find man doing his 
utmost to evade the penalty imposed upon him; he has invented 
all kinds of machinery to lighten his toil; his insistent demand has 
been for shorter hours of labor; he has sought for himself the easy 
places, and unless man-written history belies him, as often as other- 
wise he has impressed the “weaker sex” to do the sweating for 
him. Not only has woman been the childbearer, but in all ages 
and in many climes she has also been a burdenbearer. 

From the hour of his apostasy man felt it incumbent upon him 
to supervise woman; to see that she underwent in fullest measure 
the penalty imposed upon her. He rebuked every attempted evasion 
as rebellion against the Almighty. It is recorded that when anzs- 
thetics were first discovered and used in cases of severe suffering 
at maternity, some clergymen preached against it, declaring that 
“such relief from pain was contrary to Scripture, since pain at 
maternity was a part of the curse.” So intent has man been in 
this effort to supervise woman that he has at times overlooked or 
ignored the terms of his own sentence. 

The question naturally arises—Why did woman submit to such 
injustice? Was she by nature craven? There were two reasons. 
First, man’s superior physical strength enabled him to enforce his 
mandates. Second, woman’s strong religious instinct contributed 
to her subjugation. In all ages and among all peoples man has 
arrogated to himself the office of religious teacher. From this 
vantage-point he dinned into woman’s ear the lesson of suffering 
and obedience. This is true of heathen priest and Christian 
cleric. God had appointed her pangs and decreed her subjugation. 
Accepting this, she bowed her head and nerved herself for the 


WAS IT PENALTY? 49 


ordeal. Without this appeal, or mandate, to her religious nature, 
man never could have effected the subjugation of woman. When- 
ever she divests herself of this belief, she will stand erect, look the 
world in the face, and assert her independence. The age of sub- 
serviency is well-nigh ended. The time has come when woman 
will think for herself ; when she will study in person the terms of 
the sentence imposed upon her. When she sets herself to this task, 
she will see wondrous things in Divine law; she will discover where 
man has erred and misinterpreted the teachings of Sacred Writ 
concerning her. 

Genesis iii1:16 is one of the great, outstanding passages of the 
Bible. Mankind has never overlooked it. It has held a large 
place in the world’s thought. It has received a thousand-fold 
more attention than Genesis iii:17-19. Eve’s penalty has over- 
shadowed Adam’s. It has been debated in the councils of the 
Church; it has been reviewed in courts, civil and ecclesiastical; it 
has shaped social customs; it has influenced jurisprudence; it has 
determined church polity; it has permeated human life in all its 
relations; it has engraven itself on the brain of manhood and 
pierced as a two-edged sword the heart of womanhood. 

We have studied this passage as a prophecy and noted its ful- 
fillment; we are now considering it as a penalty. We have made 
concessions to the advocates of this theory, in order to meet them 
on a common standing-ground: we forego the charge of inequity 
and accept, for the time being, the representative character of 
Adam and Eve, and now the passage is before us divested of all 
that can be urged against it as a penalty. 

“Unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow 
and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and 
thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” 
How long, O Lord! How long? Until the seed shall come; 
“W hich is Christ.’ Hear the emancipation proclamation: “Woman 
being beguiled, hath fallen into transgression, but she shall be 
saved through the childbearing” (R. V. 1884). 

The weighty import of this passage is entirely concealed in the 
Authorized Version. King James translators ignored the article 


before texvoyovtas, thereby making the reading as follows: “She 


50 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


shall be saved in childbearing.” American Revisers invited ridi- 
cule by rendering thus: “She shall be saved through her child- 
bearing.” Indeed! Her childbearing! What other kind is there? 
Are these translators trying to impress us with the fact that this 
is not a miraculous lying-in? That nothing new has happened 
under the sun? That woman is still the childbearer, and Jere- 
miah’s vision is still unrealized? ‘Wherefore do I see every 
man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all 
faces are turned into paleness? Alas! for the day is great, so that 
none is like it.” American Revisers have removed all cause for 
perturbation. “She shall be saved through her childbearing!’ 
It never entered into human mind that any mortal could survive 
his. It was probably due to the American Revisers that “her” is 
the marginal reading of the 1884 Version. Bible readers on both 
sides of the Atlantic are now spared misapprehension on this sub- 
ject. 

“She shall be saved through the childbearing”’—Xwbjcetar 
dé tyh¢ texvoyovlagc (I Tim. ii:15). This admits of but three in- 
terpretations: 

(1) Childbearing is meritorious, and a means of salvation. 

(2) The life of godly women will be preserved in parturition. 

(3) Womankind will be redeemed from thralldom through the 
birth of some particular child. 

As to the first—that childbearing, in and of itself, is a means to 
salvation, we might pass it by as unworthy serious consideration, 
were it not for the fact that there is, among the untaught and mis- 
taught, such confidence. Commenting on such misapprehension, 
Dr. Adam Clark says: “Some foolish women have supposed from 
this verse, that the very act of bringing forth children shall entitle 
them to salvation; and that all who die in childbed, infallibly go 
to glory. Nothing can be more unfounded than this: faith, love, 
holiness and sobriety, are as absolutely requisite for the salvation 
of every daughter of Eve, as they are for the salvation of every 
son of Adam. Pain and suffering neither purify, nor make atone- 
ment. On the mercy of God, in Christ, dispensing the remission 
of sins, and holiness, both men and women may confidently rely 
for salvation; but nothing else.” 


WAS IT PENALTY? 51 


These “foolish women” who believe “that the very act of bring- 
ing forth children shall entitle them to salvation; and that all who 
died in childbed infallibly go to glory,” are as far astray as some 
intelligent men who during the World War held and taught that the 
soldier who fell in battle “infallibly’ went to heaven; about the 
only difference being that the “foolish women” inadvertently mis- 
appropriated Scripture in support of their view. 

The second interpretation of I Timothy ii:15 demands careful 
thought, from the fact that it has been so generally accepted. If 
this be the true explanation, it must be supported by observation 
and experience. Failure here drives us to one of two conclusions: 
either we are at fault in our exegesis, or this is not an inspired 
passage. 

Does history prove that godly women are exempted from the 
peril of death in the bringing forth of children? Far from it. 
As Rachel, the beloved wife of Jacob, yielded her life in travail 
and “hard labour,” so every age has furnished its quota of women 
who continued “in faith and love and sanctification with sobriety,” 
yet died in birth-pangs. Readers of this book can probably call to 
mind Christian women who have made the “supreme sacrifice.” 
The author has personal knowledge of a number. Many a new- 
born babe has never felt a mother’s kiss: as the earth-light fell 
on its eyes, the death-film gathered on the eyes of her who bore it; 
other arms received the little stranger because the mother hands 
were folded and her bosom too icy cold to nestle it. The estimated 
deaths, annually, from childbirth, in the United States, is fifteen 
thousand. Are we to assume there are no Christians among them? 

The old-time exegesis of I Timothy ii:15, is at variance with 
mortuary statistics, and is discarded by some scholarly exegetes. 
Bishop Ellicott translates I Timothy i1:15, thus: “She shall be 
saved by means of the childbearing” and comments as follows: 
“We have two explanations (1) by fulfilling her proper destiny and 
acquiescing in all the conditions of woman’s life. (2) By the rela- 
tion in which woman stood to the Messiah, in consequence of the 
primal prophecy that her seed (not man’s) ‘should bruise the 
serpent’s head.’ The peculiar function of her sex (from its relation 
to her Saviour) shall be the medium of her salvation.” After not- 


52 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


ing an objection, he comments further: “When, however, we con- 
sider its extreme appropriateness, and the high probability that the 
apostle in speaking of woman’s transgression, would not fail to 
specify the sustaining prophecy which preceded her sentence; 


when we add to this the satisfactory meaning which 8a thus 


bears—the uncircumscribed reference of cw8qceta—the force of 
the article (passed over by most expositors)—and lastly, observe 
the coldness and jejuneness of (1), it seems difficult to avoid decid- 
ing in favor of (2). 

Dr. Hastings, in “The Greater Men and Women of the Bible,” 
page 37, says: “Yes, I will believe with the learned Revisers, and 
with some of our deepest interpreters, that Paul has the seed of the 
woman in the eyes of his mind, in this passage, and that he looks 
back with deep pity and love on his hapless mother Eve: and then 
after her, on all women and on all mothers, and sees them all 
saved with Eve and with Mary, by the Man that Mary got from 
the Lord, if they abide and continue in faith, in love, in holiness, 
and in sobermindedness.” Dr. MacKnight comments thus: 
“Though Eve was first in transgression, and brought death on 
herself, her husband, and all her posterity, the female sex shall be 
saved (equally with the male) through childbearing through bring- 
ing forth the Saviour, if they live in faith, and love, and chastity, 
with that sobriety which I have been commending. 


“The word swOqcetat ‘saved, in this verse refers to } yuvy 
‘the woman, in the foregoing verse, which is certainly Eve. But 
the Apostle did not mean to say that she alone was to be saved 
through childbearing, but that all her posterity, whether male or 
female, are to be saved through the childbearing of a woman; as 
is evident from his adding ‘If they live in faith and love and holi- 
ness, with sobriety.’ For safety in childbearing does not depend 
on that condition at all; since many pious women die in child- 
bearing, while others of a contrary character are preserved. The 
salvation of the human race, through childbearing, was intimated 
in the sentence passed on the serpent; Genesis iii:15: J will put 
ennuty between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and 
her seed. It shall bruise thy head. Accordingly, the Saviour be- 
ing conceived in the womb of His mother by the power of the 


WAS IT PENALTY? 53 


Holy Ghost, He is truly the seed of the woman who was to bruise 
the head of the serpent; and a woman, by bringing Him forth, 
has been the occasion of our salvation.” 

Dr. Adam Clark coincides with this view: He says: “This 
is the most consistent sense, for in the way in which it is com- 
monly understood, it does not apply. There are innumerable in- 
stances of women dying in child-bed, who have lived in faith 
and charity and holiness, with sobriety; and equally numerous 
instances of worthless women, ‘slaves to different kinds of vices, 
who have not only been saved in childbearing, but have passed 
through their travail with comparatively little pain; hence that is 
not the sense in which we should understand the apostle. 

“If they continue (Kay wetvwoty) is rightly translated, If they 
live; for so it signifies in other passages, particularly Philippians 
i:25. The change in the number of the verb from the singular to 
the plural, which is introduced here, was designed by the Apostle 
to show that he does not speak of Eve, nor of any particular 
woman, but of the whole sex.” 

To cling to the old interpretation of I Timothy 11:15 is to hold to 
that which has proved itself fallacious; on the other hand, the 
great outstanding fact of human history is that Jesus Christ is 
the Emancipator of woman—the Babe of Bethlehem the Restorer, 
the Repairer of the breach. Every hour since His advent He has 
been wiping the tears from her eyes and lifting the burdens from 
her heart. He wrought no violent revolution, but He started an 
evolution that will never cease until woman is restored to her 
kingdom; until she stands again by the side of her husband, joint- 
ruler over “the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, and over every 
living thing that moveth upon the earth.” He hath redeemed her 
from the penalty of the broken law. “She shall be saved through 
the child-bearing.” 


IV 


DURING THE ANTEDILUVIAN AND PATRIARCHAL 
AGES 


during the Antediluvian Age. We have but four brief 

references in the Old Testament to the mother of human- 
kind after the Fall. Her name was changed from Isha (AW) 
which means, “Female man,” to Havvah (m3m)_ signifying, “Life,” 
“Because she was the mother of all life.’ Our English rendering, 
“Eve,” comes from the Septuagint, “Eva.” 

Commenting on this change of name, Dr. H. A. Thompson, 
author of “Women of the Bible,” says: “It may have been be- 
cause she was to be the mother of a seed who should bruise the 
serpent’s head, and thus by being the progenitor of Christ, would 
be the mother of all who should have spiritual life through him.” 

President Edwards, writing on the subject, comments thus: 


P MHE Bible is almost silent concerning the status of woman 


“Tt is remarkable that Adam had before given his wife another 
name, ‘Isha,’ when she was first created and brought to him; but 
now, that on this occasion of the Fall and what God had said upon 
it, he changed her name and gives her a new name: ‘Havvah’ 
(life) , because she was to be the mother of every one that has life, 
which would be exceedingly strange and unaccountable if all that 
he meant was that she was to be the mother of mankind. It is 
most probable that Adam would give Eve her name from that 
which was her greatest honor, since it is evident that he had 
respect to her honor in giving her this name. The name itself, 
‘life,’ is honorable, and that which he mentions concerning her 
being the mother of every living one, is doubtless something he had 
respect to as honorable to her. Since he changed her name from 
regard to her honor, it is most likely he would signify it in that 
way which was her peculiar honor ; but that was the most honorable 
of anything that ever happened or ever would happen concerning 
her—that God said she should be the mother of that seed that 

54 


ANTEDILUVIAN AND PATRIARCHAL AGES 55 


should bruise the serpent’s head. This was the greatest honor 
that God had conferred on her.” 


The name “Havvah” was not bestowed until after the promise 
was made that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s 
head. Incidentally, it may be said that this promise, in itself, is 
a proof of the inspiration of the Mosaic record. “Her seed” was 
something uninspired man would never have allowed. Prior to the 
time of Francis I, of France, dissection of the human body was 
regarded as sacrilege. Not until this prejudice was overcome was 
it known that the ovum was the mother’s contribution to life. In 
1827, “Von Baer discovered the ovule, the reproductive cell of the 
maternal organism, and demonstrated that its protoplasm con- 
tributed at least half to the embryo child.” Before this, it was 
held that the mother had no essential share in the formation of 
her offspring. The comparison being made that “man was the 
seed and woman the soil.” In Greece the doctrine promulgated 
was that the spirit of the child was derived from the father, “The 
function of the mother was only to clothe the spirit, or simply to 
act as ‘nurse’ to the heaven-born production of the father.” The 
oracle of Apollo declared that the father was “the real parent of 
the child.” In course of time it was held that the mother was 
not related to her children. In the “Eumenides,’ Orestes, when 
reproached with matricide, answers, “Do you call me related to 
my mother?” During the reign of Edward VI of England, the 
civil and ecclesiastical courts united in declaring that the Duchess 
of Suffolk was no kin to the son she had borne. Prior to the 
discovery of Von Baer, the well-nigh universal belief was that the 
father was the chief, if not sole agent, in reproduction. How could 
Moses, uninspired, gain possession of the biological secret that the 
mother organism furnished the ovule? 

Another glimpse we have of Eve after the Fall is on the occasion 
of the birth of her firstborn. We hear her exclamation, “I have 
gotten a man, the Jehovah,” or “I have gotten a man, with 
Jehovah” (; Minny wy wysp) The Authorized Version ren- 
ders, “I have gotten a man from the Lord.” The Revised Version, 
“T have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” This passage 


56 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


has occasioned controversy among exegetes, and there is divergence 
of opinion as to its import. The Hebrew nw is the matter under 
dispute. Is it prepositional or a sign of the accusative? If the 
former, the translation should be, “I have gotten a man with 
Jehovah; if the latter, “I have gotten a man, the Jehovah,” or 
“even Jehovah.” The “Hexapla” renders in the Greek, “I have 
gotten a man, even Jehovah.” This was favored by Luther, 
Miinster, Fagius, Schmidt, Pfeiffer, Baumgart and others of the 
older exegetes. The “Septuagint” reads, “I have gotten a man for 
the Lord.” The variations all hinge on the Hebrew particle M&, 
Naturally, those holding MX to be, in this case, a sign of the 
accusative, understand Eve’s exclamation to be an expression of 
her belief that the promised seed, which was to bruise the serpent’s 
head, had come—that Cain was that seed. Luther and many others 
of his age so contended. This was evidently the construction 
Origen put upon her words when he translanted in the “Hexapla,” 
“T have gotten a man, even Jehovah.” Skinner comments thus: 
“That Eve imagined she had given birth to the divine ‘seed’ 
promised in Genesis iii:15 may be disregarded as a piece of anti- 
quated dogmatic exegesis.’ Cook is more guarded, and says: 
“There is, however, little doubt that her words had some pregnant 
meaning, and that she looked on Cain as, at all events, one of that 
race which was destined to triumph over the seed of the serpent.” 
J. R. Dummelow, in his “Commentary,” calls attention to the fact 
that “the Hebrews attached great importance to names, which were 
mostly regarded as descriptive of some characteristic in the thing 
or person on whom they were bestowed.” That Eve named her 
firstborn, Cain—“gotten” or “acquired”—is not devoid of signifi- 
cance. The translators of the Revised Version have adopted the 
rendering: “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” This 
requires the insertion of words not in the original text. Skinner 
condemns such interpolation, and says: “To render Ms ‘with help 
of’ is against all analogy. It is admitted that Mw itself nowhere 
has this sense.”” One modern exegete would go so far as to change 
the word “gotten” and make the passage read, “I have created a 
man with the help of Jehovah.” The author cannot concur in 
such radical treatment of Scripture. The Bible is, or is not, the 


ANTEDILUVIAN AND PATRIARCHAL AGES 57 


inspired word of God. If it be the former, we may forego human 
emendations; if the latter, it cannot speak to us with authority on 
any question. 

It may not be amiss here to note a few vagaries of commentators 
in connection with the question under discussion. One advances 
the thought that Adam was not the parent of Cain; his father was 
a demon; another that Cain and Abel were twins; and still a third 
that Cain, at birth, was a full-grown man. He bases his conclusion 
on the fact that Eve exclaimed, “I have gotten a man,” instead of 
saying, “I have gotten a child.” Under such circumstances, we 
can scarcely wonder at Eve’s ejaculation. Before making up our 
verdict on the import of Genesis iv:1, “I have gotten a man, the 
Jehovah,” or, “I have gotten a man with Jehovah,” we call atten- 
tion to the following facts, which are not unworthy consideration: 
(1) The frequent use in Genesis of MS as a sign of the accusative, 
and its exceptional employment as a preposition. (2) Its invari- 
able appearance as a sign of the accusative before the name of the 
begotten in the genealogical tables of Genesis. (3) The inaneness 
of the rendering, “With the help of.” Does it not impress the 
reader as being weak, vapid, unnatural and far inferior to Genesis 
iv:25? (4) The birth of Cain occurred after the expulsion from 
Eden. Doubtless ere this Eve had felt the sting of sin. What 
more natural than that she should long for the fulfillment of the 
promise that her seed should bruise the serpent’s head? Can we 
conceive it otherwise than that this hope and expectation should 
be ever uppermost in her mind? These facts are not in themselves 
determinative, but they are not to be ignored in our consideration 
of the question. 

Eve named her second son Abel, which signifies “vapor,” “van- 
ity,’ “nothingness.” The name itself is pregnant; it has a tongue 
and tells a tale; it reeks of weariness and disappointment. Some- 
time, somewhere, the iron had pierced that mother’s soul. This 
is not play of the imagination; it is a warrantable inference. She 
takes a pessimistic view of life— “All is vanity and vexation of 
spirit.” Foretold sorrows have oppressed her; if ever she cher- 
ished a hope that the promised seed had come, it had died out 
of her heart. Later, there settles on that downcast soul a shadow 


58 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


never to be lifted. Cain slays his brother. The historian does 
not bare Eve’s grief to the vulgar eye. It must have been more 
poignant from the knowledge that her own hand had opened the 
flood-gates of misfortune. When her third son, Seth, was born, 
the memory of that deed of blood still harrowed her soul, and 
she exclaimed, “God hath appointed me another seed instead of 
Abel: for Cain slew him.” With this plaint on her lips—‘“Cain 
slew him,” the historian draws the veil over her life and leaves 
her to the sorrows that still await her. 

Without question, Eve was the mother of a numerous progeny. 
In Genesis v:3, we read: “The days of Adam after he begat Seth 
were eight hundred years, and he begat sons and daughters.” 
Eve’s sorrows and conceptions were multiplied; in sorrow she 
brought forth children—and the world will never cease to pity 
and condemn its “Stabat Mater’—the fairest and the saddest of 
humankind. 

In Genesis iv :19-24, we have a flash-light picture of an antedi- 
luvian household. Lamech was a descendant of Cain and in- 
herited the bad blood of his ancestor. He, too, was a murderer 
and the first recorded polygamist. The names of his wives are 
given—Adah and Zillah. We know little of these women. They 
each bear two children; Adah two sons, and Zillah one son and 
a daughter. Their lot must have been far from happy, wedded 
to a hot-headed Cainite, a polygamist and a self-confessed mur- 
derer. 

In the sixth chapter of Genesis we are afforded fuller informa- 
tion as to the status of women in the antediluvian period: “And 
it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the 
ground, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God 
saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them 
wives of all that they chose.” ... “The Nephilim were in the 
earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God 
came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to 
them: the same were mighty men, which were of old, the men of 
renown. And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great 
in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his 
heart was only evil continually. And it repented Jehovah that 


. ANTEDILUVIAN AND PATRIARCHAL AGES = 59 


he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart” 
(Gen, vi:I, 2, 4-6). 

We will not follow commentators afield to discover the mean- 
ing of the term “sons of God.” It matters not; polygamy was 
rife and in every age and every clime where such custom prevails 
we find womankind downcast and downtrodden. Wedded to 
beings—fallen angels or fallen men—whose wickedness was great 
and whose “every imagination of the thoughts” of whose heart 
“was only evil continually,’ life for them could be only pro- 
longed, unmitigated, agony. 

In the seventh chapter of Genesis we see four women—the wives 
of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, entering the ark to escape the 
Flood. In I Peter, iii:20, we are told that “eight souls were’ 
saved.” Noah and his three sons were monogamists. With the 
entering into the ark, the curtains rung down on the antedi- 
luvian world. 

Noah has been called “the second father of the human family.” 
Chronologically, he stands at the head of the patriarchal group. 
The record concerning him after the Deluge, is brief. After the 
waters subsided, we see him standing at the altar offering burnt 
sacrifices in recognition of the deliverance of himself and family. 
God enters into covenant relation with him and his sons. The 
next scene is to his discredit. Awakening from a drunken bout, 
he bestows his blessing on his elder sons and pronounces maledic- 
tions on his youngest born and his posterity. 

The almost utter lack of reliable data in the Oriental mode of 
computing time, makes it impossible to determine the length of 
the period intervening between the Deluge and the call of Abra- 
ham. The number of centuries that elapsed is a mere matter of 
conjecture. Calmut, Usher, Hale and others, have worked out 
chronological tables but they are untrustworthy. The advance of 
civilization would indicate a long period of time, centuries—pos- 
sibly millenniums. 

It may be pointed out that the tenth and eleventh chapters of 
Genesis furnish data for our calculation. This is true to a limited 
extent, but we face the fact that among the Hebrews it was a 
common practice to omit names from their genealogies. Compare, 


60 | THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


for example, Ezra vii:1-5 with I Chronicles vi:4-15, and we find 
that in the table, in Ezra, eight generations are passed over without 
mention. Samuel Willard, A.M., LL.D., in his treatment of this 
subject in “The Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopedia,” says: 


“The student of these patriarchal tables, after observing the 
carelessness of Hebrew genealogies with their frequent omissions, 
will find himself obliged to say of the genealogies prior to Abra- 
ham, that in them we have probably only the more important names 
of the lines of descent, the purpose of their transmission not being 
history in our modern sense, but to show a line of descent.” ... 
“Omissions in the genealogies of the Hebrew text are common 
enough to warn us that counting by generations as they are given, 
is unsafe.” 


The length of time assigned to the patriarchs in the tenth and 
eleventh chapters of Genesis, without premising omissions, is not 
sufficient to allow for the growth of the great nations in ex- 
istence at the time of Abraham—nations such as Chaldea, Assyria 
and Egypt. 

As to the status of woman during the long interval of time be- 
tween the Flood and the call of Abraham the Bible is almost 
silent. We have, however, some intimations from its reference to 
customs coming down from preceding generations. It is possible 
—even probable, that during this period arose the matriarchal 
system of which there is now such overwhelming proof. On one 
point scholars are agreed and that is that the matriarchal form 
of government prevailed at an early age among many tribes and 
races, and that it preceded the patriarchal. It is foreign to our 
purpose to discuss the question at length as it takes us outside the 
range of this volume. We note it here because it has a bearing 
on some customs that crop out in Old Testament history. We will 
call attention to these in their proper order. 

Abraham is the recognized head of the “(Chosen People’; the 
founder of the Jewish commonwealth. In him, through the line 
of Sarah’s offspring, were all the nations of the earth to be blessed. 
He was the son of Terah, a Shemite. His father was an idolater. 
In Joshua xxiv :3, 14, we have this record: “And Joshua said unto 


ANTEDILUVIAN AND PATRIARCHAL AGES 61 


all the people, Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel. Your 
fathers dwelt of old time beyond the River, even Terah, the 
father of Abraham and the father of Nahor: and they served 
other gods.” . . . “Put away the gods your fathers served beyond 
the River.” Terah was not only an idolater, but the presumption 
is that he was also a polygamist. When Abimelech reproached 
Abraham with deception in passing Sarah off as his sister, Abra- 
ham replied: “She is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father, 
but not the daughter of my mother” (Gen. xx:12). At that time 
marriage of near of kin was not prohibited by Divine law and 
Abraham had wedded his half-sister. Terah may have taken a 
second wife after the death of Abraham’s mother, but the pre- 
sumption is that he was a polygamist. 

A writer in the “Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopedia” 
advances the thought that Iscah (Sarah) was a daughter of Haran, 
Abraham’s brother, overlooking the fact that in the Hebrew text 
the name Sarah (iv) and Iscah (35°) are not identical. It is 
true that among the Hebrews the terms of relationship were used 
with latitude. For example, Abraham on one occasion called Lot 
his “brother’’; he was his nephew. But this fact does not set aside 
the statement: “She is the daughter of my father, but not the 
daughter of my mother.” 

Every Bible reader is familiar with the story of Abram’s call 
and his separation from his kindred. The subject of this volume 
confines us for the most part to the subsequent history of his wife, 
Sarah. She was of the Circassian race, the women of which have 
always been famous for their beauty. One writer says: “There 
are no cheeks so soft and creamy, no eyes so deep and lustrous as 
theirs, no form so sylph-like and willowy. Of all the nations of 
the earth, none has ever equaled that from which Sarah sprang,’— 
but she was childless. This was a source of grief to both husband 
and wife. Abram’s lament was, “O Lord Jehovah, what will thou 
give me, seeing I go childless?” 

Sarah, like all Orientals, would regard barrenness a reproach. 
An intense yearning for offspring was not peculiar to the Israelitish 
race ; the Messianic hope was not its sole explanation. The paternal 
and maternal instinct was marked among the Orientals and was 


62 THE BIBLE £TATUS OF WOMAN 


fostered by circumstances. Sons were especially desired for the 
following reasons: (1) to perpetuate the family name, (2) to 
retain the inheritance within the tribe or clan, (3) to be their 
parents’ stay in declining years, (4) to build and make the nation 
strong, (5) to maintain its fighting force. Among Jews, in later 
times, the man who did not marry and beget children was regarded 
as disloyal to his country. This sentiment among Orientals 
accounts, in some measure, for early marriages and polygamy. 

Abraham and Sarah were childless and this was their grief and 
reproach. JDespairing of herself having offspring, the barren 
spouse had recourse to a custom of the age. She proposed to 
her husband that he take her Egyptian handmaid, Hagar, as 
pilegesh—secondary wife. Abraham yielded to her entreaty and 
the usual results—family discord—followed. 

Authorities differ as to the rights and privileges of the sec- 
ondary wife. The “Jewish Encyclopedia” says: 


“A pilegesh or concubine enjoyed the same rights in the house 
as the legitimate wife. The concubine commanded the same respect 
and inviolability as the wife and it was regarded as the deepest 
dishonor for the man to whom she belonged, if hands were laid 
on her. The children of the concubine had equal rights with 
those of the legitimate wife. Jacob’s sons by Bilhah and Zilpah 
were equal with his sons by Leah and Rachel.” 


Other writers hold the reverse. In the “Popular and Critical 
Bible Encyclopedia” we have this statement: 


“In all Oriental States where concubinage is legalized, the 
principal wife has authority over the rest. The secondary one, 
if a slave, retains the former condition unchanged.” . . . “Hagar, 
though taken into the relation of concubine to Abraham, continued 
still, being a dotal maidservant, under the absolute power of her 
mistress.” Another writer in the same “Encyclopedia” says: 
“Peelehghesh—a half-wife—in a Scriptural sense, means the state 
of cohabiting lawfully with a wife of second rank, who enjoyed 
no other conjugal right but that of cohabitation, and whom the 
husband could repudiate and send away with a small present. 
In like manner, he could by means of presents, exclude his chil- 


ANTEDILUVIAN AND PATRIARCHAL AGES _— 63 


dren by her from heritage.” . . . “The rights of a concubine who 
had been bought as a foreign slave, were unrecognized.” 


The latter view accords more fully with the apparent position 
of Hagar in the Abrahamic household. Throughout the narra- 
tive she is referred to in terms indicating servitude: “Hagar, 
Sarai’s handmaid”; “Behold thy maid is in thy hand”; “Return 
to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands’; “I flee 
from the face of my mistress Sarai’; “Cast out this bondwoman 
and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir 
with my son, even with Isaac.’’ All these terms are applied to 
her after she became the secondary wife of Abraham. One of 
the forementioned writers calls her “A dotal maidservant,”’ Hast- 
ings ae “Hagar was the property of her mistress, not of her 
master.” If such be the case, it is conclusive proof that in the 
patriarchal age the wife could hold property independent of her 
husband. This was true, not only then, but also under the Mosaic 
dispensation. Both the dowry and the kethubah were the prop- 
erty of the wife—the husband could not appropriate, alienate, or 
in any way lay hands on it. If Hagar was Sarah’s “dotal maid- 
servant,” the right of her mistress was absolute and Abraham so 
recognized; he said, “Behold, thy maid is in thy hand; do to her 
that which is good in thine eyes.” 

Matters reached a culmination three years after the birth of 
Isaac, on the occasion of his weaning. Ishmael was now seven- 
teen years of age. No doubt it was a bitter disappointment to 
the Egyptian mother and also to her son, that the great wealth 
of Abraham, once so confidently counted on as an inheritance, 
would now pass to another. At the feast Ishmael manifested his 
chagrin by some overt act of disrespect toward the heir. At 
once the wrath of Sarah took flame. She demanded the ex- 
pulsion of the bondwoman and her son from the household. There 
is nothing of entreaty in her words—there is peremptory man- 
date. “Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of 
this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.” 
“The thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight on account of 
his son.” Regardless of his feelings toward Hagar, he had an 


64 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


affection for Ishmael. He was his firstborn. On a former occa- 
sion his prayer had been, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before 
Thee!’ But Sarah was inexorable. The bondwoman and her son 
must go. The translators of I Peter i1i1:6 represent Sarah as an 
obedient wife, subservient to the will of her lord, but the reader 
will notice that in the Old Testament narrative, on every occasion 
where there was a clash of wills, it was Abraham, and not the 
proud, imperious, Circassian beauty, who yielded. We will study 
I Peter iii:6 when we reach the New Testament. 

Abraham was in a strait—the thing was “very grievous in his 
sight”—but Sarah’s ultimatum was reénforced by the Divine com- 
mand, “In all that Sarah saith unto thee, hearken unto her voice.” 
It is fortunate for womankind in general that the Divine mandate 
was not counterwise. If God had said to Sarah, “In all that 
Abraham saith unto thee, hearken unto his voice,’ the advocates 
of wife subjection would have seized upon it with avidity and held 
it up as a proof-text. They would have insisted that this thing 
happened unto her as “our example.” But it was the husband, 
and not the wife, who was commanded to yield; we must therefore 
regard it as an “exceptional case,” intended to serve some inscru- 
table purpose of the Almighty. The Hebrew word yyw here 
translated “hearken” is in the Old Testament eighty-nine times 
translated “obey.” 

Before taking leave of Sarah, we call attention to God’s promise 
concerning her in Genesis xvii:15-16, ‘““And God said unto Abra- 
ham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, 
but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and moreover 
I will give thee a son of her, and she shall be a mother of nations: 
kings of peoples shall be of her.” The name “Sarah” signifies 
“princess.” Isaac was heir to the promise, not alone because he 
was Abraham’s seed—Ishmael, and Keturah’s six sons were also 
his seed—Isaac was the heir to the promise because he was the 
son of Abraham and Sarah. 

The Hebrew for “Israel” is Ss7iv—which signifies “prince 
(nw) of God (xy) .” The Hebrew for “Sarah” is my . 
Professor Robertson Smith maintains that Sarah’s name, after 
matriarchal custom, was transmitted to her offspring in the word 


ANTEDILUVIAN AND PATRIARCHAL AGES _— 65 


“Israel,” the stem of Israel “iy being the same as the stem of 
Sarah, (wy. Sarah came from a land where matriarchy had a 
foothold. 

On the peremptory demand of Sarah, Hagar and her son were 
banished from the Abrahamic household. After painful wander- 
ings, the exiles fixed their abode in the wilderness of Paran, and 
Ishmael became an archer. He was seventeen years of age at the 
time of his expulsion. The record gives the impression that a 
considerable period elapsed before his mother, in conformity to 
the usage of the time, negotiated his marriage. She “took him a 
wife out of the land of Egypt.” 

Hagar’s settlement in Paran brought her into close touch with 
the matriarchal system. This form of government prevailed in 
Arabia until a later period. Professor W. R. Smith, in his treatise 
on “Kinship and Marriage” in “Early Arabia,’ says: “In many 
parts of Arabia kinship was once reckoned, not in the male, but in 
the female line.” Eliza Burt Gamble, whose “investigations have 


+B] 


covered all the accessible facts relative to extant tribes,” says: 


“Although in Arabia, in the time of the Prophet, descent was 
traced in the male line, the evidence is almost unlimited, going to 
show that it was not always so, but, on the contrary, that at an 
earlier age relationships were reckoned through women, the mothers 
being the recognized heads of families and tribal groups.” 
“We are given to understand that, originally, there was no rule 
of reckoning kinship in Arabia except by the female line, and that 
the change in descent from the female to the male line affected 
society to its very roots.” “There seems to be little, if any, 
doubt that a system of reckoning descent through women once 
prevailed throughout all the tribes and races of mankind. In 
Greece, as late as the beginning of the historic period, traces of 
this early custom are to be observed, and, indeed, at the present 
time, among many people, evidences of it are still extant. The 
fact that throughout an earlier age of human existence descent and 
all the rights of succession were traced through women is at the 
present time so well established as to require no detailed proofs 
to substantiate it’ (The Sexes in Science and History, pp. 130, 
133). 


66 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


J. F. McLennon, in “Studies in Ancient History,” p. 289, 
also refers to this custom. C. Staniland Wake, commenting on 
the matriarchate, says: “There is strong reason for believing that 
the practice of tracing kinship in the female line was very widely 
observed from a very early period.” Herbert Spencer offers this 
explanation: “As the connection between mother and child is more 
‘obvious’ than that existing between the father and his offspring 
the custom arose of reckoning descent through females” (So- 
ciology, Vol. I, p. 665). Darwin also has something to say on 
the subject: “It seems almost incredible that the relationship of 
the child to its mother should ever be completely ignored, espe- 
cially as the women in most savage tribes nurse their infants for 
a long time, and as the lines of descent are traced through the 
mother alone, to the exclusion of the father” (“Descent of Man,” 
p. 588). Noting the prevalence of this system in Arabia, Hast- 
ings, in his “Dictionary,” says: “Most of the Jinns were women.” 
_ It may not be amiss to note in this connection a few of the dis- 
tinctive features of the matriarchal government. (1) The recog- 
nized head of the tribe or clan was a woman. (2) Descent was 
reckoned in the female line. (3) The husband severed connection 
with his own gen and became a member of his wife’s. (4) A 
woman was entirely free in the choice of a mate. (5) She re- 
tained after marriage absolute control of her own person. These 
are some of the marked features of the matriarchal form of gov- 
ernment. 

Hagar and Ishmael settled in Arabia where this system pre- 
vailed; we need not, therefore, be surprised to find in later Bible 
history mention of the Hagarites and Hagarenes (Ps. Ixxxiii:6; 
I Chron. v:10, 19, 20; xxvii:31). 

The Hagarites were a nomadic people dwelling in the eastern 
part of Palestine, over whom the tribe of Reuben achieved victory. 


The Hagarenes were “possibly the same as the Ayoatot who are 
mentioned in Strabo as dwelling in the northern part of Arabia.” 
Concerning this name the “Jewish Encyclopedia” says: “It occurs 
alongside of the names of other Arabians and even Ishmaelitish 
tribes.” . . . “Many Jewish writers assumed that the Hagarites 
were simply descendants of Hagar. It is, however, quite evidently 


ANTEDILUVIAN AND PATRIARCHAL AGES _ 67 


the intention of the chronicler to represent the Hagarites as in- 
cluding several other Ishmaelite tribes, without perhaps regarding 
them as co-extensive with the Ishmaelites. That he associated 
their name with that of Hagar is highly probable.” 

“The Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopedia” says of the 
Hagarenes or Hagarites: “So called from Hagar the mother of 
Ishmael.” We offer a few facts in support of this conclusion. 
(a) It is generally conceded that the Hagarites and Hagarenes 
were of the Ishmaelitic stock. (b) They inhabited the same sec- 
tion of country. They dwelt in Northern Arabia where Hagar and 
Ishmael fixed their abode and in an age when the tracing of kin- 
ship through the female line prevailed. (c) The Arabians, even 
to this late day, hold Hagar in highest esteem. Moslems claim 
that their holy city, Mecca, is built on the spot where she found the 
well, and exalt her Holy Fountain Zamzam near Kaaba. They 
further claim that she died and was buried at Mecca, and they 
revere her reputed tomb in the temple Caaba. Modern scholar- 
ship may reject their claims as extravagant, but they prove, beyond 
question, the high regard in which this ancestress was held. (d) 
Hagar was an Egyptian and in Egypt “inheritance and genealogy 
were reckoned by the mother, not the father. While a man’s 
possessions might descend to his sons, the line might also pass 
through the daughter to her sons” (Johnson’s Encyclopedia, article 
on “Egypt’’). 

No one questions the claim that Dan was the ancestor of the 
Danites ; Reuben of the Reubenites; Ephraim of the Ephraimites ; 
Edom of the Edomites; Moab of the Moabites; Ammon of the 
Ammonites; Midian of the Midianites, etc. Why should we 
deviate from the common rule when we come to the Hagarites 
and the Hagarenes? Professor W. R. Smith says: “That the 
existence of such a group proves kinship through women to have 
been once the rule, is as certain as that the existence of patronymic 
group is evidence of male kinship.” 

That the Hagarites were a strong and wealthy tribe is evident 
from the Bible account of the victory gained by the Reubenites 
(I Chron. v:18-22). The spoils taken from the nomads on the 
occasion of this battle were fifty thousand camels, two hundred 


68 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


and fifty thousand sheep, two thousand asses and an hundred 
thousand captives. ‘And they took away their cattle’ and “there 
fell many slain.” The angel said to Hagar: “I will greatly multi- 
ply thy seed that it shall not be numbered for multitude’ (Gen. 
XVi:I0). 

If the reader will turn to I Chronicles 1:28, he will find this 
record: “The sons of Abraham: Isaac and Ishmael.” Why no 
mention of the patriarch’s six sons by Keturah? Was it inad- 
vertence ?—an oversight on the part of the scribe? By no means. 
These six sons’ descent was reckoned in the line of the mother. A 
reference to I Chronicles 1:32 supplies the omission. Abraham, 
before his death, gave gifts to these sons and sent them “eastward 
unto the east country.” They, like Hagar and Ishmael, settled in 
North Arabia, where descent was reckoned in the female line. 
The name “Keturahites” does not appear in the Bible, but we find 
it in profane writing. 

The genealogical tables of the Old Testament furnish other ex- 
amples where descent is given in the line of the mother, but the 
foregoing are sufficient for our purpose. They prove that a 
custom prevalent in adjacent countries and among kindred people 
was recognized, and to some extent adopted, by the Jewish nation. 

We now return to the Abrahamic household. Thirty-seven 
years have elapsed since the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael. 
Sarah is dead. Isaac is forty years old and unwedded. The aged 
patriarch is solicitous about the marriage of his son—the heir of 
all his substance. He summons his servant, “the elder of his 
house, that ruled over all that he had.” After exacting from him 
a solemn promise not to take a wife for his son “of the daughters 
of the Canaanites,” he sends him to Mesopotamia—the land “‘be- 
yond the River’”—his former home—in search of a wife for Isaac 
from among his kindred. One can but wonder why a man forty 
years of age was not himself intrusted with this pleasant task, 
but such was not the custom. It evidences the extent of parental 
authority in the patriarchal age. 

We will not rehearse a story so familiar to the reader, but call 
attention to certain facts in the narrative—facts which bear traces 
of the matriarchal system. Genesis xxiv:28, “And the damsel 


ANTEDILUVIAN AND PATRIARCHAL AGES _ 69 


ran, and told her mother’s house according to these words.” 
“Her mother’s house.” This is not a reference to property. We 
do not relate events to things inanimate. She recounted her ex- 
perience to members of her mother’s family—her mother’s house- 
hold. But why, “her mother’s household”? Why not her father’s 
household? Bethuel was living and an inmate of the home and 
subsequently shared in negotiations for the marriage (Gen. 
xxiv:50). In Genesis xxiv :24, Rebekah says: “I am the daughter 
of Bethuel the son of Milcah.” Milcah was Bethuel’s mother. 
When the servant later gives account of the interview he changes 
her words and gives the father’s name. “The daughter of Bethuel, 
_ Nahor’s son” (Gen. xxiv:47). In Genesis xxiv:15 Bethuel is 

also called the “son of Milcah the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s 
brother.” Genesis xxiv:53., “And the servant brought forth 
jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment, and gave them 
to Rebekah; he gave also to her brother and to her mother 
precious things.” 

These gifts were not in the nature of purchase money. It was 
customary in early times to make rich presents to the damsel’s 
parents in order to win their favor: it was also customary for 
the parents to return these at the wedding and they became part 
of the bride’s dower. This act of generosity was optional with the 
parents. The gifts bestowed upon the bride, whether real or 
personal, were her exclusive property—the husband had no claim 
upon them. The dower was given to the bride, not with her. 
The property rights of a married woman in the patriarchal age, 
were far superior to those of a wife under the common and civil 
law of England and also of parts of the United States. Under 
the ancient régime the husband brought a dower to his bride 
instead of vice versa. 

Genesis xxiv:57, 58: “And they said, We will call the damsel 
and inquire at her mouth. And they called Rebekah and said unto 
her, Wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go.” 
Under matriarchy it rested with the woman to accept or reject 
her suitor. It was so in the case of Rebekah. There was another 
important matter to be adjusted. Matriarchy required a husband 
{2 sever connection with his own tribe or gen and to join that 


70 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


of the woman he married. He must “leave father and mother 
and cleave to his wife.” Under this system a daughter or sister 
was protected from abuse from her husband or his kin. He 
might not marry and take her away to a strange land and a strange 
people and there mistreat her. In her own gen or tribe her rela- 
tives guarded her rights. Both Abraham and his servant under- 
stood this requirement and reckoned with it. The servant said: 
“Peradventure the woman will not be willing to follow me unto 
this land: must I needs bring thy son again unto the land from 
whence thou camest? And Abraham said unto him, Beware that 
thou bring not my son thither again. The Lord, the God of 
heaven, that took me from my father’s house, and from the land 
of my nativity, and that spake unto me, and that sware unto me, 
saying, Unto thy seed will I give this land: he shall send his angel 
before thee. ... And if the woman be not willing to follow 
thee, then thou shalt be clear from this my oath: only thou shalt 
not bring my son thither again.” 

When the matter was submitted to Rebekah, she said, “I will 
go.’ She went to Canaan and became the wife of Isaac, and 
subsequent events proved that she, like Sarah, was quite equal 
to the task of managing her husband. 

The only other patriarchal household affording light on the sub- 
ject under discussion is that of Jacob. The Mormon hierarchs 
take much satisfaction out of the fact that both Abraham and 
Jacob had a plurality of wives, ignoring the plain statement of 
Scripture that such relationship was not of their choosing. Abra- 
ham yielded to the entreaty of Sarah in accepting Hagar. Jacob 
was deceived into marrying Leah—Rachel was the sole object of 
his devotion. The sterility of the latter prompted her to bestow 
her dotal handmaid as pilegesh to her husband. When Leah for 
a season ceased to bear, she followed her sister’s example. 

The custom of the age counted the child of the handmaiden 
the offspring of her mistress. It was for this reason that the soas 
of Bilhah and Zilpah were accounted equal with the sons of Leah 
and Rachel. To give appearance of reality, the handmaid brouglit 
her child to birth on her mistress’ knees (Gen. xxx:3). When 
Bilhah’s child was born, Rachel exclaimed: “God hath judge! 


ANTEDILUVIAN AND PATRIARCHAL AGES 771 


me and hath also heard my voice, and hath given me a son: 
Therefore called she his name Dan.” In each case the mistress, 
not the mother, named the child. 

After a twenty years’ sojourn in Padan Aram, Jacob resolves 
on a return to Canaan. He sends for Leah and Rachel and enters 
into consultation. He lays the case before them. Their answer is 
significant. “Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in 
our father’s house? Are we not counted of him strangers? for 
he hath sold us and hath also quite devoured our money.” Not 
only had Laban taken undue advantage of Jacob, but had also 
given his daughters cause for complaint. Jacob came to him with 
only his staff in his hand. Becoming enamored of his beautiful 
cousin Rachel, and having no substance to offer as dower, he 
bargained in lieu thereof for seven years of service. When Leah 
was thrust upon him, he added another seven years in order to 
obtain the object of his affection. According to the custom of 
the age, the wages of these fourteen years of service should have 
been given to the brides as dower. The mercenary spirit of Laban 
prompted him otherwise. He treated his daughter’s marriage as a 
sale, and retained the money in his own possession. Hence their 
complaint, “Are we not accounted by him as foreigners? for he 
hath sold us and hath also quite devoured our money.” “Our 
money.’ They lay claim to it as their dower. If Laban’s pro- 
cedure had not been out of the ordinary, his daughters would 
not have made complaint. 

In closing our study of the status of woman in the patriarchal 
age we note this fact: in no recorded incident, in no passage of 
Scripture, is the subordination of woman taught or even implied 
during this period. Laban’s treatment of his daughters may not 
be cited, for he had the same authority over his sons. The 
parent’s power extended even to the taking of life. As to husband 
and wife, the only case where yielding is enjoined is where Abra- 
ham is commanded to hearken unto Sarah. The freedom and in- 
dependence of the married woman in the patriarchal period puts 
to shame much of modern jurisprudence. Her property rights 
were assured to a degree scarcely equaled by our most advanced 
legislation. 


y4, THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


There is no question that woman’s position in that age was due, 
in large measure, to the matriarchal system that preceded it. 
Customs which prevailed in that régime extended themselves into 
the patriarchal period and guaranteed her immunity from thralldom. 

Naturally the question arises—what wrought a change? Why, 
in subsequent centuries, was woman, outside the Jewish common- 
wealth, stripped of almost every prerogative? Eliza Burt Gam- 
ble, who has given the question intensive study and investigation, 
attributes the social revolution to wife-capture. Her arguments 
are plausible, and careful analysis seems to justify, at least in 
part, her conclusions. 

Marriage, for a man who complied with conventional require- 
ments, was, during both the matriarchal and the patriarchal ages, 
a serious undertaking. If, on the other hand, he procured a wife 
by capture, he escaped responsibilities. He provided no dowry, 
no ketubah and her consent was not needed; no male relatives stood 
on guard to protect her—they were either slain or defeated in 
battle; her captor was not required to leave his own tribe; 
genealogy was carried in the husband’s line; the wife had no 
control over her own person. In a word, she had no rights her 
captor was bound to respect. Her status was that of a sexual 
slave of her husband. As mankind was almost continually engaged 
in warfare, this mode of procuring wives became popular. Women 
were the spoils of battle. Sisera’s mother looked through the 
lattice and cried: 


“Why is his chariot so long in coming? 
Why tarry the steps of his chariots? 
Her wise ladies answered her, 
Yea, she returned answer to herself, 
Have they not found, have they not ‘divided the spoil ? 
A damsel, two damsels to every man?” 
(Jud. v :28-30.) 


Wife-capture lowered the status of woman, and in time accom- 
plished the degradation of the sex. There were other contributing 
influences, but wife-capture was one of the foremost. 


Vv 
WOMAN DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 


I. HER DOMESTIC STATUS 


N the preceding chapter we noted customs; now, we treat of 
| mandates. Mosaic legislation was noteworthy in that it as- 

signed to woman honorable position in the home, church and 
state. Her domestic, ecclesiastical and civil rights were assured 
to a degree unusual outside the matriarchal age. No race of man- 
kind has ever guarded so carefully the welfare of its womanhood 
as did the Hebrews. An observant writer says that a people which 
embodied in its sacred literature such an ode as the thirty-first 
chapter of Proverbs could scarce do otherwise. Another writer 
says: “The last chapter of Proverbs could not have been written 
among a nation which despised its women.” 

Our study will reveal the fact that the Mosaic code was sin- 
gularly free from sex discrimination. In almost every instance 
where discrimination appeared, it was in lenient regard to woman. 
We will note such cases in their proper order. 

For convenience we study the status of woman during the 
Mosaic régime topically: 


I, IN THE HOME 
The Hebrew ideal—we will go further and say the Bible ideal 

—of woman in domestic relationship is found in the thirty-first 
chapter of Proverbs :—Study this portraiture and what do we see? 
(a) A woman of strength and regal bearing: , 

“She girdeth her loins with strength, 

And maketh strong her arms” (v. 17). 

“Her clothing is fine linen and purple” (v. 22). 

“Strength and dignity are her clothing” (v. 25). 
(b) A sagacious woman: 

“She openeth her mouth with wisdom” (v. 26). 

73 


4 
(c) 


THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


A business woman: 

“She is like the merchant-ships: 

She bringeth her bread from afar” (v. 14). 
“She considereth a field and buyeth it. 
With the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard” (v. 16). 
“She perceiveth that her merchandise is profitable” (v. 18). 
“She maketh linen garments and selleth them, 

And delivereth girdles unto the merchant” (v. 24). 


(d) An industrious woman: 


(e) 
(f) 


(g) 


(h) 
(1) 


“She seeketh wool and flax, 

And worketh willingly with her hands” (v. 13). 
“And eateth not the bread of idleness” (v. 27). 

“Her lamp goeth not out by night” (v. 18). 

An amiable woman: 

“The law of kindness is on her tongue” (v. 26). 

A philanthropic woman: 

“She spreadeth out her hand to the poor: 

Yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy” (v. 20). 
A model housewife: 

“She riseth also while it is yet night. 

And giveth meat to her household, 

And their task to her maidens” (v. 15). 

“She is not afraid of the snow for her household ; 
For all her household are clothed with scarlet” (v. 21). 
“She looketh well to the ways of her household” (v. 27). 
An adored mother: 

“Her children rise up and call her blessed” (v. 28). 
A beloved companion: 

“The heart of her husband trusteth in her, 

And he shall have no lack of gain. 

She doeth him good and not evil 

All the days of her life” (vs. 11, 12). 

“Her husband, and he praiseth her, saying, 

Many daughters have done worthily, 

But thou excellest them all” (vs. 28, 29). 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 75 


Here in God’s Word we have an inspired portrayal of a virtuous 
woman, a worthy woman, a woman worth while. Through long 
centuries of repression there has been held aloft this picture of 
the ideal wife and mother, but the perverted taste of mankind in 
general has rejected it. He has demanded a toy or a drudge—a 
plaything or a slave. The history of almost every nation repre- 
sents him as standing over woman, lash in hand, demanding that 
she fawn or cringe. 

Contrast with this Bible woman the stunted inmates of the 
harems and zenanas. God-made woman and the man-made woman 
stand antipodal. 

The thirty-first chapter of Proverbs formed no part of Mosaic 
legislation, but was an outgrowth of that system which assigned 
to woman honorable place in the life of the nation. 

The author of this inspired production was a woman—the 
mother of King Lemuel. Some unobservant writers have ascribed 
it to Lemuel himself. Such claim is refuted by reference to 
verse 2: “What my son? and what, O son of my womb?” 

Only an egregious blunderer would attribute such utterance to a 
masculine individual. Some expositors would explain “son of 
my womb” as signifying: “born of the same womb.” Such could 
not have been the meaning in this case where a parent is ad- 
dressing an offspring, nor could a son address such words to his 
mother. The author of this ode was a woman and a mother—the 
mother of King Lemuel—and the production of her heart and 
pen was deemed worthy a place in the inspired volume—a fitting 
conclusion of Proverbs—the Book of Wisdom. 

In the early history of the Jewish nation, woman in the home, 
whether mother, wife, sister or daughter, was an honored in- 
dividual : 


(1) THE MOTHER 

“Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long 
upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee,” was engraved 
by the finger of God on the Table of Stone, and formed an ef- 
fectual barrier to her degradation. Under Mosaic legislation, father 
and mother stood side by side. In Old Testament literature, 


76 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


wherever honor and obedience to parents are commanded the 
names of “father and mother” are conjoined: 

“Honor thy father and thy mother as Jehovah thy God com- 
manded thee” (Deut. v:16). 

“Ve shall fear every man his mother and his father’ (Lev. 
pb ite be 

“Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother” 
(Deut. xxvii:16). 

“He that spoileth his father, and chaseth away his mother, 1s 
a son that causeth shame” (Prov. xix:26). 

“Whoso curseth his father or his mother, his lamp shall be 
put out in the blackness of darkness” (Prov. xx:20). 

“My son, hear the instruction of thy father and forsake not 
the law of thy mother” (Prov. 1:8). 

“My son, keep the commandment of thy father, and forsake 
not the law of thy mother” (Prov. vi:20). 

“The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his 
mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out” (Prov. xxx:17). 

“He that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put 
to death” (Ex. xxi:15). 

“He that curseth his father or his mother, shall surely be put 
TOndeathi (ac Ox ter 7), 

References might be multiplied. Nowhere in God’s Word is 
the mother pushed to the background. The honor due her was 
the same as that due the father. A writer on the subject says: 


“The position of mother is higher under the Mosaic law than 
under any other system of antiquity. By the fifth commandment 
the mother is to be honored equally with the father, while in 
the Moral law (Lev. xix:3) the command to ‘fear’ the mother, 
that is to treat her with respect, is placed even before the duty 
of ‘fearing’ the father. Death threatened him who strikes or who 
curses his mother, as well as him who thus offends against his 
father. This sentiment was not shown by the Greeks toward 
even the best of mothers. In the first book of the ‘Odyssey’ 
Telemachus reproves Penelope, and imperiously sends her away 
to her own apartments to mind her own womanly business” (“Jew- 
ish Encyclopedia”). 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION V7 


(2) THE SISTER 

While the Mosaic code did not in specific terms recognize a 
brother’s obligation to avenge an indignity offered his sister, the 
customs of the age and the “unwritten law” justified summary 
punishment of the offender. In the patriarchal period Jacob’s 
sons wreaked speedy vengeance on the Shechemites for the ravish- 
ment of their sister. Absalom slew his half-brother Ammon be- 
cause he raped his fair sister Tamar. The “unwritten law” made 
a brother the defender of his sister’s honor, and public sentiment 
applauded his devotion. 


(3) THE DAUGHTER 

The daughter in the Hebrew home was, in more respects than 
one, a favored individual. The Mosaic law afforded her special 
protection. Parental authority in that age was well-nigh supreme. 
A father could put his child to death at will. No nation, so far 
as the author knows, outside the Jewish commonwealth, disputed 
this prerogative. Even among the Hebrews in the patriarchal 
age, a father could offer a son or daughter in sacrifice, e.g., the 
case of Abraham and Isaac. A father could put to death a re- 
fractory son at his own discretion. The Sinaitic code laid restric- 
tions on parental authority. An incorrigible son must be brought 
before the elders (Deut. xxi:18-21), and extreme penalty could 
only be imposed when his mother concurred in the charges (Mil- 
man). 

The Levitical law, in an especial manner, safeguarded daughters. 
Parental authority was abridged to a greater degree than in the 
case of sons. A father could sell his son into slavery, but not his 
daughter. In great strait he could barter her with a view to mar- 
riage, but she must not toil “as menservants do” and if the mar- 
riage were not consummated, she must be redeemed or allowed to 
“so out for nothing, without money.” The law forbade her 
being held in bondage (Ex. xxi:7-11). The “Jewish Encyclo- 
pedia” says: 


“Although the story of Rebekah proves a deep-seated sentiment 
that a girl should not be coerced into marriage, the civil law gave 


78 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


no force to this sentiment, but recognized (Ex. xxi:7) the power 
of the father to sell his daughter into bondage with the evident 
intention that she should become the wife of her master or of 
her master’s son.” 


But there were limitations to this power. We quote further: 


“The daughters must be under the age of puberty and the sale 
justified only by extreme poverty, as is attested by expressions 
found elsewhere in the Torah. . . . Tradition teaches, however, 
that a mature girl, z.e., one more than twelve and a half years, 
had the right to give herself in marriage, and the same privilege 
was allowed to ‘A widow from marriage’ even in case she was im- 
mature. On the other hand the father had a right to take a wife 
for his infant (minor) son without his son’s consent.” 


This bartering of daughters was only justifiable in cases of 
extreme poverty. In the time of Nehemiah, “there arose a great 
cry of the people and of their wives” because of the exactions 
of their nobles and rulers. They appealed to the Tirshatha for 
redress. In voicing their grievances they made this complaint: 
“Some of our daughters are brought into bondage; neither is it 
in our power to help it; for other men have our fields and vine- 
yards” (Neh. v:5), and Nehemiah was “very angry,” and sum- 
moned the rulers and nobles before him and rebuked them and 
exacted an oath that they would remedy these matters. 

A man might sell himself into bondage to a foreigner (Lev. 
XXv :47-49) and presumably his son (nowhere in the Mosaic code 
is there interdiction), but under no circumstance was he allowed 
to so dispose of his daughter. “To sell her unto a strange 
people he shall have no power” (Ex. xxi:8). 

Milman says: “A Jewish father might sell his children into 
slavery if in distress—that is, his sons—if a daughter, the law 
took her under its special protection. Under no circumstance 
could she be trafficked away into a foreign land.” 

The father was entitled to the work of his daughter’s hands and 
to what she found until she attained her majority, which was 
reached very early, and he had the same right over his minor son, 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 79 


the term lasting six months longer. The rabbis reckoned the age 
of maturity for women to be about thirteen years, and for men 
fourteen ; although, in some cases it was extended, for the latter, to 
twenty; this, however, was exceptional. 

Although the betrothal of a son or daughter might be arranged 
while the parties were minors, in every instance the marriage must 
be postponed until puberty was attained, so that practically the 
daughter held in her own hand a veto power; for at puberty she 
could annul any contract of marriage made by her parents. 

Sons took precedence of daughters in the matter of inheritance 
(Num. xxvii:8). There were circumstances, however, that, in 
some measure at least, justified this discrimination. One of the 
provisions in the ketubah (marriage contract) was that daughters 
should be supported from the estate of their fathers until they 
reached maturity or until they became betrothed. A writer in the 
“Jewish Encyclopedia” says: 


“The institution of maintenance for minor daughters, and the 
rule that the father’s estate must provide a dowry for the younger 
daughters which should equal the portion received by their elder 
sisters (unless the father had become impoverished, when the 
minimum dowry should be fifty zuzim) shows that in the great 
majority of cases the daughters fared better than the sons.” 


When a Jewish maiden became affianced, her betrothed, in ad- 
dition to gifts bestowed on her and her kindred in order to win 
favor (Gen. xxiv:53), paid a “mohar” or dowry; this later be- 
came the individual property of the bride. On occasion of the 
wedding, the groom was required to sign, in the presence of two 
witnesses, a ketubah. This instrument gave to the bride a mar- 
riage portion from her husband and obligated him to furnish her 
adequate support during her lifetime. It was also customary for 
parents to bestow on their daughters a marriage settlement. In 
case of the father’s death, this must be provided out of his estate. 
At times this was considerable. Caleb gave his daughter Achsah 
valuable land dower (Josh. xv:16-19; Jud. i:12-15). When the 
daughter of Pharaoh became the wife of King Solomon, she re- 
ceived as wedding gift from her father the city of Gezer (I Kings 


80 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


ix:16, 17). A daughter’s maintenance during minority was as- 
sured by her father; after marriage by her husband. At the wed- 
ding she received; on the other hand her brother, at his nuptials, 
must provide substantial gifts for his bride and her kindred, pay 
a mohar, sign a ketubah and guarantee ample support in the 
future. Discrimination in his favor was less real than appeared 
, on the surface. 

That parents sometimes exceeded legal requirements and made 
daughters heirs with sons is evident from Job xlii:15. “In all the 
land were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job,” 
we read further: “and their father gave them inheritance among 
their brethren.” The hero of this narrative was an Arabian pa- 
triarch, dwelling “in the land of Uz,’ where the matriarchal form 
of government prevailed. The author of the book, however, is sup- 
posed to have been an Israelite. There is strong internal evidence 
to this effect. Aside from this, it is almost unthinkable that the 
Hebrews would have admitted into their sacred canon a production 
the author of which was a Gentile. Job was a worshiper of 
Jehovah, the God of Israel, and his conduct throughout is men- 
tioned with approval. In Ezekiel xiv:14, he is classed with Noah 
and Daniel. This patriarch, preéminent for piety and held in 
highest esteem by Hebrew religionists, in the division of his wealth 
gave his daughters “inheritance among their brethren.” 

Primogeniture prevailed among the Israelites and was recognized 
in the Mosaic legislation. The eldest son inherited a double por- 
tion. This was termed “the birthright.” Custom, however, im- 
posed with it the duty to provide for the widowed mother and 
other dependents of the household. It rested also with the eldest 
son to maintain the honor and dignity of the family. 

A Jewish father could disallow his unmarried daughter’s vow 
of abstinence under certain circumstances (Num. xxx:3-5, 16). 
There can scarce be question but that before the giving of the 
Sinaitic code a father could abrogate his daughter’s vows at 
pleasure. The Mosaic law, however, abridged his authority: 
(1) She must be “in her youth’—that is, under twelve and a half 
years of age; (2) she must reside within his home; (3) he must 
annul at the time of hearing; if he postponed, and later interfered, 


a 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 81 


he was held to be guilty, while she was relieved of all responsibility. 
Whether a father had the same power over his minor son is not 
indicated. A Jewish lad attained his majority at fourteen years— 
thereafter he was regarded as a man and as such would come 
under the requirement of Numbers xxx:2. The father’s power to 
interdict his daughter’s vows ceased when she reached the age of 
twelve and a half years. 

Some commentators hold that this provision of the Mosaic law 
was concessional rather than restrictive. It provided for con- 
tingencies and afforded an immature girl opportunity to avoid the 
fulfillment of an indiscreet vow. One Jewish writer says: “This 
power of loosing vows was a great step in the progress of woman’s 
freedom, marking an advance over both Babylonian and Roman 
law, under which a father could impose vows on his daughter even 
against her will.” 

Ravishment of a betrothed Jewish maiden insured a death penalty 
for her assailant (Deut. xxii:25-27). 

Seduction must be followed by marriage, provided the father 
of the maiden gave consent. The seducer must “pay a dowry for 
her to be his wife.” Under no circumstances could he afterward 
divorce her. “He may not put her away all his days.” If her 
father would not consent to the marriage, her seducer was never- 
theless required to pay “according to the dowry of virgins” (Ex. 
Xx11:16, 17; Deut. xxii:28, 29). This review of Mosaic law shows 
that careful provision was made for the comfort and welfare of 
daughters. 


(4) THE WIFE 

Its treatment of the wife is the surest criterion of a nation’s 
attitude toward woman. Even backward nations have, at times, 
singled out the mother and accorded her honor—and this while 
holding the wife in abject bondage, e.g., China and Syria. The 
wife, more than any other being, has been the victim of ‘man’s 
inhumanity” to woman; she is the last member of her sex he is 
willing to unfetter. It was the wife who was dragged to the 
funeral pyre in India; it was the wife who was buried alive in 
Fiji; it was the wife who was bound in the sack and sunk in the 


82 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


Bosphorus; it was the wife who was strangled or buried alive by 
the tribes of the ‘Dark Continent.” From the Stone Age to the 
present age she has been the chief sufferer from man’s mania to 
dominate woman. Usages, jurisprudence and religion were almost 
everywhere stamped with such determination. 

Law-books have been weighted with enactments calling for her 
subjugation; religion has spoken in almost every tongue and 
commanded that she obey her husband; custom has decreed that 
she take a back seat in the affairs of life. Mankind has ever been 
intolerant of self-assertion on the part of the wife. Hymeneal cere- 
monies, ancient and some modern, symbolize the wife’s obsequious 
relation to her husband. In one country the bride prostrated her- 
self before the groom while he placed his foot upon her neck, 
thereby declaring her entire subjection; in another, he removed 
her veil or mantle and laid it over his shoulder to indicate that 
from henceforth the government was to be upon his shoulders. 
“Until a late period in the history of Rome it was the custom, 
during the solemnities of marriage, to pass a lance over the head 
of the wife in token of the power which the husband was about 
to gain over her’ (Gamble, p. 181). In Christian lands the 
bride goes to the hymeneal altar leaning on the arm of her father, 
who “gives this woman away” as transferred property to the man 
she meekly vows to “serve, to honor and obey.” 

It is refreshing to turn from all this to Mosaic legislation and 
find it almost wholly free from such precepts. The author knows 
of but one passage in the range of Mosaic law that even hints at 
wife subordination, and this will be considered later. 

The Jewish wife, in the early history of this people, was the 
honored companion of her husband; she was favored above the 
wives of every other nation. Even modern legislation falls short 
when compared with Levitical requirements. 

There is repeated mention in Old Testament Scripture of the 
dowry. First, there was the mohar or dowry paid by the suitor 
to the parents of the maiden—this in addition to gifts bestowed 
on the damsel and her kindred. At times, in lieu of money, a term 
of service was contracted for, as in the case of Jacob (Gen. 
xxix :18, 27). Occasionally some deed of valor was required 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 83 


(Jos. xv:16, 17; I Sam. xvii:25, xviii:17, 22-27). It early be- 
came the custom for the father to restore the mohar to the groom 
at the nuptials, and he in turn bestowed it on the bride as part 
of her marriage settlement. 

Second, the parents endowed their daughter on the occasion of 
her marriage; this became her individual property. In addition 
to this, as has been elsewhere noted, was the formal delivery of 
the ketubah—an important feature of a Jewish wedding. ‘This 
essential document was signed by the groom in the presence of two 
competent witnesses. We subjoin a translation as it appears in 
the Maim. Hil. Yibbum iv :33, also in the book Nachlath Shib’a: 


OL ey Re Sign (day of the week) the........ day of the month 
Ne te in the year........A. M., according to the Jewish reck- 
oning, here m.the city.of 22. '.\.,..... TAN artigo Cole PSOMOLR Ys sarees 
Said) to) the! virsini....): .). 5} GAUCTtEREOt mans, 26: « ; ‘Be thou my 


wife, in accordance with the laws of Moses and Israel, and I will 
work for thee, and I will hold thee in honor and will support and 
maintain thee, in accordance with the customs of Jewish husbands, 
who work for their wives, hold them in honor and support and 
maintain them. I will furthermore set aside the sum of two hun- 
dred denarii to be thy dowry, according to the law, and besides 
provide for thy food, clothing and necessaries, and cohabit with 
thee according to the universal custom.’ ” 


IVEIRS ete aha , on her part, consented to become his wife. The 
marriage portion which she brought from her father’s house in 
silver, gold, valuables, clothes, etc., amounts to the value of 


He furthermore declared: “I take upon myself and my heirs 
the responsibility for the amount due according to this Kethuba, 
and of the marriage portion, and of the additional sum (by which 
I promised to increase it), so that all this shall be paid from the 
‘best part of my property, real and personal, such as I now possess 
or may hereafter acquire. All my property, even the mantle on 


84 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


my shoulders, shall be mortgaged for the security of the claims 
above stated, until paid, now and forever. 

MAMI CIS AVE Bu ste aielg te iene , the bridegroom, has taken upon himself 
the fullest responsibility for all the obligations of this Kethuba, 
as customary in regard to the daughters of Israel, and in accord- 
ance with the strict ordinances of our sages of blessed memory: 
so that this document is not to be regarded as an illusory obliga- 
tion or as a mere form of documents. 

“In order to render the above declarations and assurances per- 
fectly valid and binding, we have applied the legal formality of 
symbolic delivery. 

(Signature of the Groom.) 
(Signatures of the two witnesses.)” 


“Tn the time of the Mishnah it was customary for the husband 
to execute a deed (called Kethubah or written agreement) which 
had to be signed by two witnesses. In this marriage contract, 
which still constitutes one of the essential parts of a Jewish wed- 
ding, and is still read out at the synagogue ceremony, the bride- 
groom promises to honour and support his wife and to present 
her with a certain sum as a settlement, of not less than two hun- 
dred zuzim (one hundred in case of a widow) beside the bride’s 
dowry. This sum to be paid in case of the husband’s death or in 
case of divorce, which it thus serves to check” (Religion and 
Worship of the Synagogue, by G. H. Box, p. 284). 


“The Ketubah could be increased by the husband and mentioned 
either in the Ketubah itself or in special deed” (“Jewish Encyclo- 
pedia’”). “A woman could sell her right or give it away to a 
stranger, but she could not release her husband from his obligation, 
or even part of it” (“Jewish Encyclopedia”). 

As to the origin of the ketubah, authorities differ. Some rabbis 
consider it to be of Mosaic origin. There are other redactors 
who assign it to a later period. There are passages of Scripture 
that seem to indicate it, e.g., Ezekiel xvi:8: “Yea, I swear unto 
thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, 
and thou becamest mine.” Ezekiel xvi:60: “Nevertheless, I will 
remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth.” 

Malachi 11:14, “Jehovah hath been witness between thee and the 
wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 85 


though she is thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.” In 
these passages there is undoubted reference to a marriage cove- 
nant. So far as is known, the ketubah was the only covenant in 
a Jewish wedding. The Oriental marriage feast usually lasted 
seven days (Gen, xxix :27). The evening of the appointed day— 
supposed to have been the fifth or sixth—the father or some near 
relative led the bride, heavily veiled, to the nuptial chamber, where 
she was received by the groom (Gen. xxix:23). The arrangement 
of the Canticles seem to indicate the observance of this ceremony. 
The marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, also Boaz and Ruth, was 
even less formal. In the latter cases the benediction was all that 
is recorded (Gen. xxiv:60; Ruth iv:11, 12). In Psalm xlv—a 
royal wedding song—we have also the benediction. 

Harwood, writing in the “Popular and Critical Bible Encyclo- 
pedia,’ says: “The blessing of an abundant offspring, invoked 
upon the bride by her relatives—(Gen. xxiv :60)—which most 
likely was the only marriage ceremony then and for ages after- 
ward” (Ruth iv:11, 12; Ps. xlv:16, 17). 

Rabbinical writers hold that, among the Jews, the wedding 
ceremony consisted of a kiss (Cant. 1:2). There is nowhere 
record of an exchange of vows by the bridal pair. Until the 
fourteenth century, the presence of a rabbi was not deemed 
essential. 

All things considered, there is at least presumption that the 
covenant referred to in Ezekiel xvi:8, 60, and Malachi ii:14, was 
the ketubah—the marriage contract. 

In Exodus xxi:10, we read: “Her food, her raiment and her 
duty of marriage, shall he not diminish.” A writer in the “Jewish 
Encyclopedia” says: “Incidentally, three obligations that the hus- 
band owes to his wife are mentioned in Exodus xxi:10 as being 
self-understood—the provision of food and of raiment and cohabi- 
tation.” A reference to page 83 of this volume will show 
that in addition to the financial obligations assumed by the groom, 
these are the requirements of the ketubah, It is quite evident that 
this document was based on Mosaic legislation, or that Mosaic 
law recognized these three provisions of the ketubah. If the 


86 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


latter, this covenant antedates the giving of the law on Mount 
Sinai. 

The wife was not dependent on her dowry and ketubah for 
support. These were her insurance in case of widowhood or 
divorce. Otherwise her husband must provide for her maintenance. 

In addition to the three duties of providing food, raiment and 
cohabitation (Ex. xxi:10), the rabbis added four others and also 
restricted the husband’s privileges to four: (1) “He must deliver 
a ketubah (marriage contract) providing for the settlement upon 
his wife in case of his death or of divorce; (2) he must provide 
medical attendance and care for her during sickness; (3) pay her 
ransom if she be taken captive; (4) provide suitable burial for 
her.” 

The following are the above requirements more in detail: 


“The husband must allow for the support of his wife as much 
as comports with his dignity and social standing. 

“A Jewish husband must give his wife a certain amount of money 
every week for spending money, even if he has to hire himself 
out as a day-laborer to do so. He must provide her board and 
cannot send her away against her will, even though he gave her 
sufficient money for all her requirements. She can, however, leave 
his home, either if he lives in a disreputable neighborhood or if 
he maltreats her; and in such cases he is obliged to support her 
wherever she takes up her abode. If the husband leaves her for 
some time, the court allows her support from his property, and 
even if she sells his property for her support without consulting 
the authorities, the sale is valid. If she borrows money for her 
actual support during his absence, the husband has to pay the debt 
on his return. The husband is obliged to provide a home, which 
must be suitably furnished in accordance with his position and 
with custom. 

“Beside furnishing her with proper garments, suited to the 
seasons of the year, and with new shoes for each holy day, he 
must also provide her with bedding and with kitchen utensils. She 
must also be supplied with ornaments and perfumes, if such be 
the custom. If he is unable to provide his wife with suitable out- 
fit, he is compelled to divorce her. The husband must defray all 
medical expenses in case of his wife’s illness. The husband is 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 87 


obliged to ransom his wife—if necessary, expend all his belongings 
for her ransom. The priest whose wife has been taken captive, 
although he cannot afterward live with her, is still obliged to pay 
her ransom, to restore her to her father’s house and to pay her 
the amount of her Ketubah. If both are taken captive, the court 
may sell part of his property, even though he protests. If she 
dies before him, he must provide for her burial according to the 
customs of the land and according to his position. He must hire 
mourners, if such be the custom, erect a tombstone and make such 
other provisions as custom may demand. If he refuses to do so, 
or if he be absent, the court may sell part of his property to defray 
burial expenses.” 


The husband was “entitled to all his wife’s earnings in con- 
sideration of his duty to support her. Hence, if she wishes to 
support herself, she need not deliver her earnings to him. Yet 
he cannot compel her to live on her earnings.” 

“A husband must not strike his wife; if he does, he is liable 
for damages, pain and shame.” “A man should always be careful 
lest he vex his wife; for as her tears come easily, the vexation 
put upon her comes near [to God].” 

The duties of the wife were as follows: 


“She must do all the housework, such as baking, cooking and 
washing, as well as nurse her children. If she has twins, the 
husband has to provide a nurse for one, while she nurses the 
other. If she brought him a large dowry, she need not do any 
work in the house, except such as tends to the ease and comfort 
of her husband and as is of an affectionate nature, viz., prepare 
his bed, serve at the table, etc. At all times, however, she must 
do something, for ‘Idleness leads to immorality.’ ” 

“The wife, if she brings no dowry, is bound to do such house- 
hold work for the husband as grinding, baking, washing, cooking, 
and suckling her child, spreading the bed and working in wool 
(spinning, knitting and the like). If she brings one slave woman, 
or the means to buy one, she need not grind, bake or wash clothes ; 
if two, she need not cook, nor suckle her child; if three, she need 
not spread the bed nor work in wool; if four, she may ‘sit still 
in her chair,’ ” 

“A married woman was never bound to work in the field.” 


88 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


Even if a slave, “She shall not go out as menservants do” (Ex. 
CL 

one first Jewish commonwealth the wife was the honored 
companion of her husband. When the bride reached the threshold 
of her new home, the groom placed her hand on the upper part of 
the door, thereby making her the mistress of the household; he 
handed her his mantle, girdle and hat, signifying that she shared 
his property. 

The author of “The Jewish Law of Marriage and Divorce,” 
says: “Woman is part of man’s own being; hence not, as according 
to the degrading views of almost all nations of antiquity, his 
inferior and slave, but equal to him in dignity, and destined to be 
a helpmeet at his side.” 

Mosaic law and Hebrew custom not only made ample provision 
for the financial support of the wife during the lifetime of her 
husband and after his decease, also in case of divorce, but they 
safeguarded her health to a degree unequaled by modern juris- 
prudence. “The stern law of God stood sentinel over the health, 
purity and welfare of the wife.” 

The Jewish husband could not degrade his spouse into a sexual 
slave. For stated and protracted periods her couch was sacred 
from his approach. There was catamenial seclusion—seven days; 
there was forty days’ separation after the birth of a son, and eighty 
days after the birth of a daughter. It is possible there was also 
separation during gestation. It is said of Joseph, the husband 
of Mary, that he “knew her not till she had brought forth a son” 
(Matt. 1:25). 

The question naturally arises—why was the husband forbidden 
to approach his wife for a longer period after the birth of a 
daughter than after the birth of a son? What was the import of 
such interdiction? It is unsupposable that there was greater im- 
purity in the one case than in the other. 

C. Hamilton Smith, President of the Devon and Cornwall 
Natural History Society, traveling in the beaten paths of thought, 
offers the following explanation: “The duration of defilement 
caused by the birth of a female infant, being double that due to a 
male, extending respectively to eighty and forty days in all (Lev. 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 89 


xii :2-5), perhaps represents the woman’s heavier share in the first 
sin and first curse.” An acquired habit of thought prompts this 
writer to send womankind through life staggering under the weight 
of Eve’s transgression. 

H. L. Hastings, in his volume entitled “The Wonderful Law,” 
offers a more erudite explanation. We quote his words: 


“There is, as it is well known, in consequence of the exposure 
of men to various dangers, a tendency to an excess of females in 
civilized communities. And such an excess forms a disturbing, 
if not a dangerous, element in society, destroying the natural 
balance of the sexes, and in some cases leading to serious evils; 
as may be seen in Great Britain, where a preponderance of 800,000 
females leads to such horrible exhibitions of vice and sin as cannot 
openly be described. We know how female infants have been 
destroyed by their parents in non-Christian lands, and are all 
familiar with the bitterness of the lot of Oriental women... . 

“In a perfect condition of society, without deaths from vice or 
violence, there might be no inconvenient excess of the female sex 
under the ordinary birth-rate; and in a pure and well-ordered 
community, such excess, if it existed, might be attended by no 
special evil results. But fallen humanity is far from perfection, 
and the evils resulting from this state of things are neither few 
nor small. 

“The rule of force, which ever prevails outside the influence of 
the Scriptures, makes a woman’s lot one of subjection and degra- 
dation; and an excess of females in any locality, under these cir- 
cumstances, tends to cheapen and degrade them. But no such 
cheapening and wastefulness of God’s precious handiwork was 
possible under the provisions of the Mosaic law, for the natural 
tendency of the extension of this period of maternal seclusion 
after the birth of a female child would be to slightly reduce the 
birth of females; the births in families composed mostly of girls 
being less frequent and less numerous than in the case of the 
opposite sex. 

“It is stated that even to the present day, as might be expected 
from this law, the proportion of births of males to females is 
greater among the Jews than among their Gentile neighbors, the 
tables showing that among the Jews 112 boys are born to 100 
girls, while among the Gentiles there are but 105 boys to 100 girls, 


90 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


giving the Jews an excess of seven per cent over the Gentiles in the 
birth-rate of males.” 


There is weight in the foregoing argument. History proves 
that the unbalancing of the sexes, due to the dangers incidental 
to the vocational life of men, and above all to the depletions of 
war, paves the way to female infanticide, polygamy and the social 
evil. This is especially true where social customs and economic 
conditions force women into a dependent relation. The lax morals 
that characterize army life aggravate the evils. 

We have only to turn our eyes to Europe at the present time 
for proof of the foregoing statements. In councils of state are 
found advocates of polygamy, and at least one of the foremost 
nations in the World War openly offered encouragement to plural 
marriages. 

A further explanation of the lengthened maternal seclusion after 
the birth of a female child suggests itself to the author. It was 
held by some of the peoples of antiquity—there are also modern 
proponents of the belief—that sexual intercourse during the periods 
of gestation and lactation is injurious to both mother and off- 
spring; that the vital energies of the former require conservation 
to enable her to properly nourish her infant. It is a well-known 
fact that this law of abstinence prevails in the animal kingdom. 
The brute mother is privileged an exemption too often denied the 
human mother. 

Students of child culture affirm that the first three months of a 
babe’s life are super-important; that a setback during this period 
tells on the child’s development for a long time to come. 

That such belief lay back of the Levitical requirement is only 
postulation on the part of the author. No one will question the 
humaneness of the provision. That the period of maternal seclu- 
sion after the birth of a female infant was almost three lunar 
months—twice as long as in the case of a male—is only further 
evidence of the distinctive regard shown to daughters by the 
Hebrew lawgiver. Healthy girlhood meant healthy wifehood; 
healthy wifehood meant healthy motherhood; healthy motherhood 
insured healthy offspring; healthy offspring meant a vigorous 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 91 


nation. The Hebrew commonwealth gave careful thought to its 
child-bearers—“its most sacred trust.” 

One or both of the last two explanations are sufficient answer 
to the question why the wife was forbidden for a longer period 
after the birth of a daughter than after the birth of a son. Reason 
there must have been, for God’s commands are always reasonable ; 
His mandates are manifested concern for human welfare. 

The Mosaic law permitted a husband to interdict his wife’s vows 
under prescribed circumstances (Num. xxx:6-8, 10-16). This 
was the only instance where Levitical law gave the slightest recog- 
nition of a husband’s assumed prerogative to supervise the conduct 
of his wife, and even here the restrictions imposed brought his 
authority within a very narrow compass. His interference was 
not in the least to her disadvantage. 

Mosaic law was at times concessional; it reckoned with deep- 
rooted prejudices; it took account of long-established usages. 
H. L. Hastings says: 


“The law was graded on the lines of possibility and practicability. 
The question was not what would be a perfect law for a perfect 
people, but what was the best law that could be imposed upon a 
nation of sinners fresh from the bondage of Egypt, in the desert 
of Sinai and in the land of Canaan.” 


Jesus indicated the concessional nature of this law when the 
Pharisees approached Him on the subject of divorce. He an- 
swered: “Moses, for your hardness of heart, suffered you to put 
away wives; but from the beginning it hath not been so” (Matt. 
xix :8). This yielding to popular demand He charges not to God, 
but to Moses: “Moses, for the hardness of your heart, suffered 
you to put away your wives.” Such relaxation was a contravention 
of the Divine will and purpose: “From the beginning it hath not 
been so.” “He which made them from the beginning made them 
male and female, and said: For this cause shall a man leave his 
father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the twain 
shall become one flesh.” In the exceptional cases where Mosaic 
law granted indulgence to the perverted will of the people, it 
invariably sought to minimize attendant evils. It clipped the wings 


92 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


of wrongdoing; it hobbled prejudices; it pruned and girdled unde- 
sirable customs which could not be uprooted without unsettling the 
social fabric. Instead of “direct action,” it took a roundabout way 
to extirpate that which was detrimental. Hastings says: “It con- 
fined itself to regulating an old, established, and widely extended 
institution.” 

Mosaic law recognized blood revenge, but waved back the 
avenger, and pointed the manslayer to a city of refuge, and 
assured a well-kept pathway for his feet until he came before the 
judges. 

Mosaic law recognized slavery, but ameliorated the lot of the 
bondman and the bondwoman, and wrote in the nation’s calendar 
a semi-centennial jubilee, and proclaimed “liberty throughout the 
land unto all the inhabitants thereof.’ Mosaic law tolerated 
polygamy, but piled obstacles in the pathway of the polygamist. 

Mosaic law permitted wife-capture, but drafted a bill of par- 
ticulars and warned the captor not to trespass on the reserved rights 
of his captive. 

So in the case before us, Mosaic law allowed a husband to annul 
his wife’s vow, but it drove the stakes so close, and raised the 
barriers so high, he scarce had elbow-room in which to exercise 
his authority. A study of the text will show how narrow were 
the confines into which he was driven: 

First: He must disallow her vow “in the day that he heareth it.” 
If he delayed, his authority in the matter ended; if he held his 
peace at her “in the day that he heard,” her vow was established. 
Subsequent interference on the part of the husband relieved the 
wife of all responsibility, and made him chargeable for her non- 
fulfillment—“He shall bear her iniquity” (Num. xxx:15). 

In the second place, his power of annulment extended but to two 
kinds of vows: (a) “The rash utterance of her lips’ (Num. 
xxx :6, 8); (b) an “oath to afflict the soul” (Num. xxx:13). 
Certainly, interdiction under such circumstances could not be to 
her disadvantage. 

The Orientals held the vow to be most sacred—so sacred that 
the vower felt himself obligated to discharge it at any cost, ¢.g., 
Jephthah (Judges xi:35) and Herod (Matt. xiv:9). The Bible 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 93 


itself stresses the solemnity and sacredness of the vow (Num. 
Xxx :2, 9; Deut. xxiii:21-25; Ecc. v:4-7). Now Mosaic law pro- 
vided a way in which a wife could escape the fulfillment of a rash 
vow or an oath that would bring her into distress—“afflict the 
soul.” Her husband was empowered to release her—her con- 
science would be satisfied and “the Lord shall forgive her.” This 
was a lenient provision—especially so in an age and among a people 
who held the vow to be irrevocable. We recall the bitter cry of 
Jephthah: “Alas, my daughter! Thou hast brought me very low 

. for I have opened my mouth unto Jehovah, and I cannot go 
back.” With a wife it was otherwise; a door was opened whereby 
she could escape. Hebrew maxims taught that a wife must not be 
distressed—this, not only out of tender regard for her happiness, 
but also out of concern for her health, and the effect upon her 
offspring. 

We note, incidentally, that the Hebrew verb (s3)), here trans- 
lated “disallow,” is, in Numbers xxxii:7, rendered “discourage.” 
If the translators had adopted this rendering in the passages under 
consideration, they would have read—if her husband discourage 
her in the day that he heareth it: then he shall make void her vow 
which is upon her, and the rash utterance of her lips, wherewith 
she hath bound her soul: and Jehovah shall forgive her (Num. 
xxx :8). And if she vowed in her husband’s house, or bound her 
soul by a bond with an oath, and her husband heard it, and held 
his peace at her, and discouraged her not; then all her vows shall 
stand (Num. xxx:I1). 

The fact that her husband Aiea geet and made known his 
disapproval at the time of hearing, released the wife from the 
fulfillment of “the rash utterance of her lips,’ and of an “oath 
to afflict the soul” —and this was the extent of a husband’s authority 
over his wife, as recorded in Mosaic law—let those who hold to 
opposite view, disprove the statement. That the foregoing pro- 
vision was advantageous to the wife must be apparent to every 
reader; at the same time it was an inoffensive concession to the 
spirit of the age. It was doubtless a curtailment of a former 
custom; an abridgment of an assumed prerogative—and withal an 
appeasement to husbands, jealous of their rights. 


94 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


The Levitical code—as was well-nigh universal in that age— 
permitted wife-purchase and wife-capture. Under the first Hebrew 
commonwealth, both civil and canonical law recognized four forms 
of marriage, (a) Beena, (b) Ishi, (c) Baal, (d) Leverate. The 
Beena marriage was one where the husband severed relation with 
his own family or gen and united with that of his wife. Their 
offspring took the mother’s name and the genealogy was reckoned 
in her line. Such was the marriage of Barzillai’s daughters (Ezr. 
ii:61, Neh. vii:63), also of Zeruiah, the sister of King David 
(I Chron. 11:16, 17), and possibly of other women whose names 
appear in the genealogical tables of the Jews—this will be con- 
sidered later. The Beena marriage was a characteristic of the 
matriarchy. 

The second type of marriage was the Ishi—we use this term 
for want of a better. It was the prevalent form of marriage 
among the Hebrews. It was the customary union of a free man 
and a free woman. The wife received from her husband a dowry, 
ketubah, marriage portion and a pledge of support and mainte- 
nance, “in accordance with the customs of Jewish husbands, who 
work for their wives, hold them in honor and support and maintain 
them.” 

The third type of marriage recognized among the Hebrews was 
the Baal—the term signifying, “master,” “possessor,” “owner.” 
If a Hebrew father were reduced to poverty, he could sell his 
daughter to an Israelite with a view to marriage—never to a 
foreigner. If her purchaser “dealt deceitfully with her,” and did 
not consummate the marriage, either himself or for his son, he 
must allow her to be redeemed; he could not hold her in bondage 
nor sell her to another. Marriage under such circumstance would 
be of the Baal type—the marital union of a master with his bond- 
maiden. If the husband contracted a second marriage, he was 
forbidden to diminish the food, raiment or duty of marriage of 
the wife secured by purchase. If he disregarded these provisions 
of the law, he must allow her to go free—divorce her. He could 
not demand a return of her purchase-money, neither could he hold 
her in slavery nor sell her to another. He must divorce and 
manumit (Ex. xxi:11). Let the reader compare this merciful 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 95 


provision of Mosaic law with that of other countries of antiquity. 

We have reference to the Ishi and Baal types of marriage in 
Hosea ii:16. “It shall be at that day, saith Jehovah, that thou 
shalt call me Ishi [my husband] ; and shalt call me no more Baali 
[my master].” Israel, under the first covenant held the position 
of a purchased wife. “I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, 
and redeemed thee out of the house of bondage” (Mic. vi:4). 
“T have redeemed thee: I have called thee by thy name, thou art 
mine” (Isa. xliii:1). Under the second covenant she shall be the 
beloved wife, the honored companion. “Thou shalt call me Ishi 
[my husband]; and shalt call me no more Baali [my master].” 

Baal marriage was also resorted to in the case of wife-capture. 
Israel waged defensive warfare; rarely ever, aside from the con- 
quest of Palestine, offensive. As was inevitable after a victory, 
there were many prisoners of war. What could be done with 
them? One of two things: they could be slaughtered or enslaved. 
The latter was the more humane—especially as Levitical law was 
considerate in its treatment of slaves. To release these captives 
was to invite a renewal of the war. 

Mosaic law, unlike the prevalent custom of antiquity, did not 
leave the female captive to the mercy of her captor; it threw a 
protecting arm about her. If he had “a desire unto her,” he must 
make her his wife; nor was he permitted to exercise undue haste 
in the matter of marriage; he must allow her the usual period of 
mourning—“a full month.” If the marriage proved unsatisfactory, 
he must release her—grant her a divorce—and permit her to go 
whither she would—back to her kindred, or to dwell in the land. 
His power over her was at an end; he could not hold her in cap- 
tivity, nor barter her to another (Deut. xxi:10-14). A marriage 
of a captor to his captive was of the Baal type. 

Another form of marriage in vogue among the Hebrews was the 
Leverate—the union of a man with the childless widow of a 
deceased brother. The first-born of such marriage succeeded to 
the name and estate of the dead man. This custom was handed 
down from the patriarchal age (Gen. xxxviii:8). Its purpose was 
to preserve the family name and inheritance (Deut. xxv:6, 9). 
Levitical law recognized this form of marriage, but provided a 


96 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


means of escape (Deut. xxv:7-10). Some Jewish writers hold 
that the brother was not obligated to wed his childless sister-in-law 
if he already had a wife. Presumably, the union need not be con- 
tinued after its purpose was accomplished and an heir born. 

Mosaic law tolerated polygamy, but piled obstacles in the way. 
A man must not contract a second marriage during the lifetime of 
his first wife, if by so doing he curtailed her maintenance. “Her 
food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage shall he not diminish” 
(Ex. xxi:10). This provision, in itself, was almost prohibitive 
for the average individual. Jewish law and custom imposed stern 
duties on a husband; he must provide liberal support for his wife; 
only a man of means could add to these responsibilities. Plural 
marriages were never popular among the Hebrews. Notwithstand- 
ing the prevalence of the custom in surrounding nations, public 
sentiment among the Jews was ever against the practice. Their 
sacred and profane literature abounds in jibes concerning it. The 
author of a work entitled, “Jewish Law on Marriage and Divorce,” 
maintains that it was rare except in cases where the first wife was 
childless. Under no circumstances could a man take in marriage 
a sister to his first wife during the lifetime of the latter (Lev. 
xvili:18). If a man had two wives, one beloved and the other 
hated, the children of the beloved must not supplant the children 
of the hated (Lev. xxi:15-17). 

Mosaic law expressly enjoined that kings should not multiply 
to themselves wives (Deut. xvii:17). David, Solomon and some 
of the later Hebrew kings disregarded this commandment. 

It remains for us in this connection to consider briefly the 
divorce laws of the first Jewish commonwealth. In two cases the 
marriage relation was indissoluble. If a man ravished a maiden 
or seduced her, he was compelled to make her his wife, if her 
father gave consent. In such case, he might not put her away all 
the days of his life (Ex. xxiii:16, 17; Deut. xxii:28). If a man 
accused his wife of ante-nuptial unchastity, and the charge was 
disproved, he was chastised, amerced, and deprived of the right of 
subsequent divorce. “He may not put her away all his days” 
(Deut. xxii:13-19). 

The general law on divorce was as follows: “When a man 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 97 


taketh a wife, and marrieth her, then it shall be, if she find no 
favor in his eyes, because he hath found some unseemly thing in 
her, that he shall write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in 
her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is departed 
out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife’ (Deut. 
XRT¥ 27512): 

In the time of Christ the schools of Shammai and Hillel waged 
controversy over the import of this statute. The author of “Jewish 
Law on Marriage and Divorce,” commenting on this difference of 
opinion, says: “The interpretation of the expression, ‘some un- 
cleanness’ (R. V. ‘some unseemly thing’) (935 n)7qy)—literally, 
‘the nakedness or shame of a thing,’ used in the Mosaic law as a 
ground of divorce, is a point on which the schools of Shammai and 
Hillel, . . . widely differed. The former school took the expres- 
sion in an ethical sense, and consequently limited the husband’s 
right of divorce to the case of moral delinquency or unchaste 
demeanor in the woman, while the school of Hillel, understanding 
the expression to relate to anything offensive and displeasing, per- 
mitted divorce for any cause that might disturb domestic peace.” 

It was the adherents of these schools that brought the question 
to Jesus, “Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every 
cause?” We are familiar with His answer. He not only took 
issue with the school of Hillel, but pointed out the concessional 
nature of the Mosaic enactment. 

No matter how the schools of the second Jewish commonwealth 
might differ in their interpretation of the law, there can be no 
question that the more liberal view prevailed under the first com- 
monwealth; the words of Jesus so indicated, and because the pro- 
vision was inadequate and temporal—because it fell below the 
original standard, He abrogated it—He disannulled “a foregoing 
commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness” (for 
the law made nothing perfect). (Heb. vii:18, 19.) 

Under the Mosaic code, if a man contracted a second marriage, 
thereby reducing “the food, raiment and duty of marriage” of his 
first wife, she could demand divorce on the ground of diminished 
maintenance (Ex. xxi:11). If a man wedded a captured woman 
and the union proved unsatisfactory, he must “let her go” (Deut. 


98 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


xxi:14). In the case of moral delinquency on part of either hus- 
band or wife, Mosaic law imposed the death penalty (Lev. xx:10). 

While the words of Jesus indicate liberal interpretation of Deut- 
eronomy xxiv:I, 2, under the first Jewish commonwealth (un- 
doubtedly under the second), and divorces were granted on insuffi- 
cient ground, there was strong deterrent, so far as husbands were 
concerned. All that a wife brought with her at the time of mar- 
riage, she took with her when he sent her away—gifts from 
friends, dowry, and marriage settlement; her ketubah must be met 
in full. Under rabbinical ruling every obligation on the husband’s 
part must be discharged before he could write a bill of divorcement. 

Whether a Hebrew wife could divorce her husband or not has 
been debated. Certainly in the cases above noted she could demand 
a divorce and the object sought was attained. Whether the judges 
permitted her to write a bill of divorcement is another question. 
The law, and man’s interpretation of the law, must not be con- 
founded. The expression, “Let her go,’ would indicate that at 
times the wife took the initiative. When the Pharisees approached 
Jesus on the subject of divorce, He specified the wife as well as 
the husband. “Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry 
another,’ He said, “committeth adultery against her: and if she 
herself shall put away her husband, and marry another, she com- 
mitteth adultery” (Mark x:11, 12). This answer leaves room for 
the inference that wives as well as husbands were blameworthy in 
this matter. 

As to the intent of the Mosaic law on this question, there is this 
to be said: Only in exceptional cases did it provide for a double 
standard; never where moral questions were at issue. Take, for 
example, the adulterer and the adulteress: both must suffer death, 
the fornicator and the fornicatrix faced the same punishment. 
Only in rare cases did the Sinaitic code allow for sex discrimina- 
tion, and, as our study has revealed, in each particular case there 
was wise underlying reason. This was remarkable; especially so 
when we take into consideration the age, and measure the deep- 
seated prejudice of almost all the surrounding nations. 

During the first and also the second Jewish commonwealth a 
woman could be an independent property-holder. Her dower, her 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 99 


ketubah, and any other possessions acquired, whether real or per- 
sonal, were her own. Boaz said to his near kinsman: “What day 
thou buyest the field of Naomi, thou must buy it also of Ruth the 
Moabitess” (Ruth iv:5). The Shunammite whose son Elisha 
restored to life is called in Scripture “a great woman.” This would 
imply that she was a person of wealth, or that she held high official 
position. The record would indicate the former. During a subse- 
quent famine she and her household removed to the land of the 
Philistines. After a seven years’ sojourn she returned, only to 
find that her possessions had been seized. She cried unto the king 
for redress, “so the king appointed to her a certain officer, saying, 
Restore all that was hers, all the fruits of the field since the day 
that she left the land, even until now.” The fact that she was 
called “a great woman” during the lifetime of her husband is proof 
that her weatlh was not acquired through widowhood (II Kings 
iv :8, viii:1-6). 

We have further proof in Proverbs xxxi:16, 18; also in the 
cases of Achsah (Jos. xv:19); Mary, the mother of John Mark 
(Acts xii:12); and the women who ministered unto Jesus “of 
their substance” (Luke viii:3). 

Under the reverberations of Sinai, Hebrew womanhood was 
elevated to a status approaching that of Eden. Succeeding cap- 
tivities wrought change. Close contact with the laws and customs 
of other nations effected revolution in the popular mind; Mosaic 
law was plastered over with rabbinical precepts and woman sunk 
to the low level where Christianity found her. The second Jewish 
commonwealth was worm-eaten along these lines. 

In closing this study of the domestic status of woman under the 
Mosaic régime, we throw out challenge to any reader to produce 
any edict from the Levitical code, aside from Numbers xxx:6-8, 
12-15, that even implied the subordination of the wife, and in this 
particular case the supervision allowed was restricted, and served 
for relief even more than for restraint. It may be urged that the 
term “Baal,” sometimes applied to a husband, is proof of his au- 
thority over his wife. As has been elsewhere pointed out, this ap- 
pellation owed its origin to the pre-nuptial relations of the contract- 
ing parties. 


100 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


In conclusion of this chapter we quote the words of a Jewish 
writer: “Woman is part of man’s being; hence, not, as according 
to the degrading views of almost all nations of antiquity, his in- 
ferior and slave, but equal in dignity, and destined to be a help 
at his side” (“Jewish Law of Marriage and Divorce’). 


VI 
DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION (ContTINUvED) 


II. IN CHURCH 


| RIOR to the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, 1491 
P B.c., there is no mention of the church or established order 

of Divine service. The word “priest” occurs in Scripture 
during this period but six times, and in each instance refers to 
individuals outside the pale of Judaism (Gen. xiv:18, xli:45, 50, 
xlvi:20; Ex. ii:16, iii:1). The word in the plural is found three 
times in Genesis xlvii in reference to the Egyptian priests. 

The only inference that can be drawn from this silence of Sacred 
Writ is that public worship among the Hebrews, prior to the 
Exodus, was confined to family groups or tribes. The assumption 
has always been that during the antediluvian and patriarchal ages 
the father officiated as priest or pontifex maximus. ‘This is in- 
capable of proof or disproof. The fact that during a period of 
several thousands of years, six men—Cain, Abel, Noah, Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob—on eleven different occasions are said to have 
“erected an altar” and to have offered a sacrifice to Jehovah is an 
insecure foundation on which to build an assumption that no 
woman ever did likewise. Aside from this, we must bear in mind 
that the offerings here referred to—with the exception of that of 
Cain—were sanguinary, requiring the slaughtering of animals and 
the pouring out of blood. Woman, both physically and tempera- 
mentally, is unfitted for such gory work. But there were other 
priestly functions, and there were bloodless sacrifices. 

It is an indisputable fact that many countries of antiquity had 
priestesses as well as priests. So far as Hebrew women were 
concerned, we are willing to allow the presumptive, but not the 
assumptive. The author of this volume is not building on con- 
jecture. Since proof or disproof is not forthcoming, we waive the 


question of woman’s share in public worship during the ante- 
101 


102 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


diluvian and patriarchal ages, and pass at once to a consideration 
of her status in the church under the Mosaic dispensation. 

During the first Hebrew commonwealth, women were admitted 
to the Sacred Choir. On the occasion of rejoicing after the pas- 
sage of the Red Sea and the overthrow of the Egyptian army, 
two great companies were formed—the men under the leadership 
of Moses, and the women under the leadership of Miriam—and 
the song recorded in the fifteenth chapter of Exodus was chanted 
antiphonally. Moses with his chorus of men sung: 


“T will sing unto Jehovah, for He hath triumphed gloriously: 
The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea,” etc. 


Miriam, followed by “all the women,” and accompanied by their 
musical instruments, answered them—that is the men, (ond) (the 
pronoun is masculine) : 


“Sing ye unto Jehovah, for He hath triumphed gloriously: 
The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea.” 


In this great religious celebration, Moses and Miriam were 
the chief actors. The honors were divided, and they stood facing 
each other on the threshold of a new dispensation. 

During the Davidic reign a Sacred Choir was organized, and 
placed under competent leaders—“Certain of the sons of Asaph, 
and of Heman and of Jeduthan” (I Chron. xxv:1). The arrange- 
ment of musicians and singers was by “order of the king.” The 
number of them “that were instructed in singing unto Jehovah, 
even all that were skillful, was two hundred four-score and eight.” 
This choir was “for the service of the house of God” (I Chron. 
xxv :6). 

Now a question is—was this body of musicians and singers made 
up solely of males or were women also admitted? In I Chronicles 
xxv :5-7, where there is detailed account, we read: “And God gave 
to Heman fourteen sons and three daughters. All these were 
under the hands of their father for song in the house of Jehovah, 
with cymbals, psalteries and harps, for service of the house of 
God. And the number of them, with their brethren that were in- 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION ~~ 103 


structed in singing unto Jehovah, even all that were skillful, was 
two hundred four-score and eight.” Heman’s three daughters 
were members of the Sacred Choir and their assignment was by 
order of the king. As is apparent from a study of the Hebrew 
text, verse six is not the beginning of a new paragraph. 

The recurrence of the phrase “brethren and sons” in the suc- 
ceeding verses (9-31) may be urged as indicating that only males 
were reckoned in the allotment. The objection is invalid from the 
fact that the Hebrew word for “sons,” (O95) is frequently used 
to designate offspring of both sexes (Gen. iii:16, xxi:7, xxx:'I, 
XXX1:17, xxxli:11; Deut. iv:10, et al.). In numberless cases it is 
rendered “children.” I Chronicles vi:3 (Hebrew text I Chron. 
v:29), Miriam, the sister of Moses, is listed as a son of Amram. 
(a%93 AW JAMS ODpy 333) “Every male among the sons (O33) 
of Aaron shall eat of it” (Lev. vi:18, R.V.). “A male son is 
born unto thee” (72] jd) (Jer. xx:15). 

In the inscription of the Psalm xlvi appear these words: “Set 
to Alamoth ” (nipdy-dy)- I Chronicles xv:19-22, we have this 
record: “So the singers, Heman, Asaph and Ethan, were appointed 
with cymbals of brass to sound aloud; and Zechariah, and Aziel 
and Shemiramoth, and Jehiel, and Unni, and Eliab and Maaseiah, 
and Benaiah, with psalteries set to Alamoth; and Mattithiah, and 
Eliphelehu, and Mikneiah, and Obed-edom, and Jeiel, and Azaziah, 
with harps set to the Sheminith to lead. And Chenaniah, chief 
of the Levites, was over the song: he instructed about the song, 
because he was skillful.” 

The word “Alamoth,” appearing in such connection, has proved 
a stumbling-block to commentators. There can be no question as 
to its meaning elsewhere. It is the Hebrew for “maidens,” 
“damsels,” “virgins,” “young women.” In Psalm Ixviii:26, we 
read: “In the midst of the damsels (nindy) playing with tim- 
brels.” Canticles i:3: “Therefore do the virgins (mindy) love 
thee.” Instances might be multiplied. The meaning of the word, 
aside from Psalm xlvi and I Chronicles xv :20, is indisputable. But 
why difficulty here? Because Psalm xlvi formed part of the 
Hebrew Psalter, and I Chronicles xv :19-22 relates to the arrange- 
ment of the Sacred Choir. To allow the usual rendering under 


104 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


such circumstances would indicate beyond question that women 
had a place in the Tabernacle choir, so expositors have wrestled 
with the offensive word “until the breaking of the day.’’ One 
would have “Alamoth” refer to some musical instrument, although 
ancient art and modern excavations have not revealed such. 
Another surmises that as the Psalm xlvi was arranged for the 
“Alamoth,” the intention was that it should be sung by boys, 
because they have “female voices”; overlooking the fact that the 
author of the Psalm was an Israelite and familiar with the Hebrew 
word for “boys.” 

Plumer says: “ ‘Alamoth’ is rendered ‘virgins’ in Canticles 1:3, 
vi:8. Some here read, virginals or virgin tunes.” He does not 
account for the absence of “tunes” from the text, nor does he 
enlighten his readers as to the nature of “virginals.”’ Elsewhere 
he says: “It probably in some way refers to music.” Lowth says: 
“T am not at all satisfied with any explication I ever met with of 
these verses, either as to their sense or construction, and I must 
give them up as unintelligible to me.” 

Plumer says: “The names of musical instruments in the Bible 
are the torment of translators. ... We do not, certainly, know 
the shape, size or power of any of them.” 

Hengstenberg paraphrases thus: “After the virgin manner.” He 
offers no apology for the introduction of a new word, for substi- 
tuting the singular for the plural, nor for changing a noun into 
an adjective. Forkel, in his “Gesch der Musik,” 1, p. 142, 
understands “virgin measures.’ The same objection applies here 
as in the preceding, viz., the introduction of a new word, the sub- 
stitution of the singular for the plural, the conversion of a noun 
into an adjective, and, further, lack of explanation as to the char-’ 
acteristics of “virgin measures.” 

But why this juggling with noun and adjective? Why this 
substitution of singular for plural? Why this lugging in of 
“tunes,” “measures,” and “musical instrument”? Why this “hop- 
ping, skipping and jumping” around the word “Alamoth”’? It 
has one unquestioned meaning, viz., “maidens,” “damsels,” ““vir- 
gins,’ “young women’; and there is no proof that it has ever 
had any other signification. Why dabble in surmises? Why not 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 105 


face the issue with open-mindedness? Some commentators have 
had the hardihood to do so. Gesenius, the Hebrew lexicographer, 
renders nindy-by (Psalm xlvi & Chron. xv:20) “after the man- 
ner of maidens,” “i.e., with the female voice, 1.¢., our treble, 
soprano, opp. to the deeper voice of men.” (3%wW) According to 
Gesenius, thislast word, “Sheminith” (}*»w) denotes “the low- 
est and gravest notes, as sung by men, the modern bass, basso,” 
opp. to ninby-by,, 

Tholuck renders nivdy-by , “To the tune of the virgins.” 
Alexander holds that it refers to “soprano or treble voices.” Of 
this troublesome word “Alamoth,” the ‘Standard Bible Diction- 
ary” says: “This perhaps refers to some treble effect.” “It must 
be confessed, however, that the interpretation of all these technical 
terms, as others cited, is extremely uncertain.” Yet these “many 
men of many minds,” one and all, concede that “Alamoth,” aside 
from I Chronicles xv:20 and Psalm xlvi &~+- means, “‘damsels,” 
“maidens,” “virgins,” “young women.” Such being the case, 
one can but query whether the difficulty is with the word or in 
the mind of the commentators. 

It may be pointed out that the Israelites held religious festivals 
and open-air celebrations, apart from Tabernacle and Temple 
services—e.g., after the crossing of the Red Sea and the overthrow 
of the Egyptian host (Ex. xv:1-21); after the defeat of Sisera 
and his army (Judges v:1-31) ; on the occasion of the bringing up 
of the ark by King David (II Samuel vi:1-5; I Chron. xiii:5-8; 
I Chron, xv:3-28) ; after Jehoshaphat’s victory over the Moabites 
and Ammonites (II Chron. xx :21-30) ; at the laying of the founda- 
tion of the second Temple (Ezra 11:10, 11) ; at the dedication of 
the walls of Jerusalem, after their rebuilding by Nehemiah (Neh. 
xii :27-43) ; at the going up of the tribes, “even the tribes of Je- 
hovah,” to the annual festivals (Ps. cxxii:4) ; while the Israelites 
were on their return journey from exile. Some hold that at this 
period the “Songs of Ascent’ were written and chanted. 

All such occasions were characterized by singing and the playing 
of musical instruments. After the organization of the Levitical 
Choir, it took the lead in such demonstrations. There is abundant 
proof that women were participants in song and the handling of 


99 «66 


106 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


musical instruments at these festivities. At the celebration follow- 
ing the passage of the Red Sea, Moses and Miriam were the chief 
actors in song; after the defeat of Sisera, Deborah and Barak. 
In Psalm Ixviii, supposed by some to have been sung on the occa- 
sion of the removal of the ark, or written in commemoration of 
the event, appear these words: 


“The singers went before, the minstrels followed after, 
In the midst of the damsels playing with timbrels” (v. 25). 


It may be noted, incidentally, that wherever in Scripture there is 
mention of “timbrels,” it is quite safe to assume the presence of 
women. This instrument was played almost exclusively by such. 
One writer says: “The occasions on which it was used were mostly 
joyful, and those who played upon it were generally females, as 
was the case among most ancient nations, and is so at the present 
day in the East.” 

“Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in 
her hand: and all the women went out after her with timbrels and 
dances” (Ex. xv:20). 

On the occasion of the bringing up of the ark of the covenant, 
“David and all the house of Israel played before Jehovah with all 
manner of instruments made of fir wood, and with harps, and with 
psalteries, and with timbrels and with castanets, and with cymbals” 
(II Sam. vi:5). “And David and all Israel played before God 
with all their might, even with songs, and with harps and with 
psalteries, and with timbrels and with cymbals and with trumpets” 
(I Chron. xiii:8). 


“Sing aloud unto God our strength: 
Make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob, 
Take up the Psalm, and bring hither the timbrel, 
The pleasant harp and the psaltery, 
Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, 
At the full moon, on our solemn feast day. 
For it is a statute for Israel, 
An ordinance of the God of Jacob” (Ps. Ixxxi:2-4). 


“Let them sing praises unto Him 
With the timbrel and harp” (Ps. cxlix:3). 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 107 


“Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet; 
Praise Him with the psaltery and harp, 
Praise Him with the timbrel and dance: 


Let everything that hath breath praise Jehovah” (Ps. cl:3-6). 


Now it may be urged that women’s participation in song and 
music was on these festive occasions, and not at “The door of the 
Tent of meeting,” nor within the sacred precincts of the Temple. 
For answer we quote from Sacred Writ: 


“They have seen Thy goings, O God. 
Even the goings of my God, my King, into the sanctuary, 
The singers went before, the minstrels followed after, 
In the midst of the damsels playing with timbrels” 
(Ps. Ixviii:24, 25). 


Psalm xlvi, written to be sung by “maidens” (Alamoth), formed 
part of the Hebrew Psalter, and was dedicated to “The Chief of 
Musicians,” or conductor of the Sanctuary Choir. 

“God gave to Heman fourteen sons and three daughters. All 
these were under the hands of their father for song in the house 
of Jehovah, with cymbals, psalteries, and harps for the service of 
the house of God” (I Chron. xxv:5, 6). 

We quote from “The Standard Bible Dictionary”: “Attached 
to the Temple, at least in later periods, were singers and players, 
both men and women, set apart from among the Levites.” The 
Chronicler gives extensive details about their organization and 
activity (I Chron. vi, xxv; II Chron. v, xx, xxix, etc; II Kings 
xii:13; Ezek. xl:44), especially at the end of the Exile (Ezra ii, 
Neh. vii, xii). 

The Levitical Choir was instituted by King David. It was 
arranged in twenty-four courses and placed under the leadership 
of Asaph, Jeduthun, and Heman. Prior to the building of the 
Temple, it sung before the Tabernacle, “And they ministered with 
song before the Tabernacle of the Tent of Meeting, until Solomon 
had built the house of Jehovah in Jerusalem (I Chron. vi:32). 
After the erection of the Temple, its station was on the east side 
of the brazen altar (II Chron v:12). 


108 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


When King Cyrus decreed the rebuilding of the Temple, Zerub- 
babel, accompanied by almost 50,000 Jews, returned to Jerusalem. 
Among them were “Two hundred singing men and singing women” 
(Ezra ii:65). When the foundation was laid, this choir was 
brought into service (Ezra iii:10, II). 

In the twentieth year of the reign of Artaxerxes, when Nehemiah 
returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls, there accompanied him, 
“Two hundred forty and five singing men and singing women” 
(Neh. vii:67). 

Provision was made for the maintenance of singing men and 
singing women. ‘They lodged in chambers provided for them 
within the Temple wall (1 Chron. 1x:33; Neh. x:39; Ezek. x1:44). 
In the time of Nehemiah they built for themselves villages round 
about Jerusalem (Neh. xii:29). 

Singers, like priests and porters, had “portions” assigned them 
(Nehii xisojesdit47, xi :r0; LL) Chron vaaxxy :15.)..) “Artaxerxes 
exempted them from “tribute, custom or toll” (Ezra vii:24), and 
made “A settled provision” for them “as every day required” 
( Neh. xi:23). 


Women offered audible prayer in the Tabernacle and synagogues, 
not only in unison with the congregation, but apart therefrom. 
Hannah prayed in the Tabernacle at Shiloh (I Sam. i:10-15). 
“Her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore’— 
because “Her voice was not heard’—“Eli thought she had been 
drunken.” 

G. H. Box, in “Religion and Worship of the Synagogues,” p. 
299, says: “In the synagogue women said the Eighteen Benedic- 
tions, but instances are on record that they sometimes offered short 
prayers composed by themselves as well. Rabbi Jochoman relates 
that one day he observed a young girl fall on her face and pray, 
and he records her prayer.” 

Rabbi Bachrack declared that women used to say Kaddish in 
the synagogue “when their parents left no male posterity.” Accord- 
ing to this author, the Kaddish was a prayer corresponding some- 
what to the Lord’s Prayer. It was read in the synagogue for one 
year after the death of a parent, and on anniversaries thereafter. 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 109 


Under ordinary circumstances, this service was performed by a 
son, but at times by a daughter, “who put on the praying-shawl 
(Talith) and mounted the beena.” 

We must bear in mind that the synagogue was an institution of 
the Second Jewish Commonwealth, so that the prevalent belief 
that women never functioned during that period in any public 
religious service is an error. Such may have been the case within 
the bounds of Palestine, under the strict surveillance of the Rab- 
bim, but certainly not among the Dispersion. Ramsay, in “The 
Church of the Roman Empire,” says: “The honors and influence 
which belonged to women in the cities of Asia Minor form one 
of the most remarkable features in the history of the country. In 
all periods the evidence runs on the same lines. ... The best 
authenticated cases of Mutterrecht belong to Asia Minor. . . . The 
custom of the country influenced even the Jews, who in at least 
one case appointed a woman at Smyrna to the position of Archi- 
synagogue.” He says further: “Ancient epitaphs attest the fact 
that certain women earned the titles ‘Mistress of the Synagogue,’ 
‘Mother of the Synagogue.’”’ Noting this, one writer comments 
thus: “Probably by their religious zeal in charity,” overlooking the 
fact that the duties of such functionaries were not distinctively 
along such line. 


Under the Mosaic régime women ministered at the door of the 
tent of meeting. “And he made the laver of brass, and the base 
thereof of brass of the mirrors of the women which assembled to 
minister at the door of the tent of meeting” (Exodus xxxviii:8 
R.V. 1884 marginal reading). “And he made the laver of brass 
and the base thereof of brass, of the mirrors of the ministering 
women that ministered at the door of the tent of meeting” (Ameri- 
can Revision). We also have reference to these women, I Samuel 
sa. 

“At the door of the tent of meeting” were the altar of burnt 
offerings and the laver. Here the sacrifices were slain, here the 
“pillar of cloud” came down and God talked with Moses, Aaron 
and Miriam (Ex. xxix :43, xxxili:9; Num. xii:5, xvi:42, 43; Deut. 
XXx1:15, et al.). Here the priest was consecrated; here he abode 


110 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


seven days and nights after his consecration; here the sacrifices 
were eaten; here the Nazarite shaved his head. After the rebel- 
lion of Korah the congregation of Israel were forbidden to come 
nigh the Tent of meeting lest they bear sin and die (Num. xvii:13, 
XVili:22). 

Women “Ministered” at the door of the tent of meeting. The 
word here translated “ministered,” or “served” (838) is em- 
ployed to designate two kinds of service: (a) Military service. 
(b) Tabernacle or Temple service.—“Mulitia sacra.’ In the case 
before us it has reference to Tabernacle service. The Hebrew 
word N28 is employed to designate the service of but one class or 
order of Tabernacle attachés, viz., The Levites. It is said of 


them that they S28 xoyd —a literal translation would be, “They 
warred the warfare.’ Our translators render “Waited upon the 
service’ (Num. viii:24). The Levites “warred the warfare’ 


(S28 xox) “in the work of the tent of meeting.” 

From the fact that S$2¥, aside from its military sense, is used 
only of the Levites in connection with Tabernacle service, we 
deem ourselves warranted in concluding that these women who 
“ministered” (828) “At the door of the tent of meeting” (Ex. 
xxxvill:8; I Sam. 11:22) belonged to that order. Dr. Hastings 
says: “$28, a word frequently used in the priestly code for some 
sort of Levitical service in the Tabernacle” (Num. iv:23). “Ex- 
cept that some ritual service associated with the priests’ sacrifi- 
cial work is implied, it is impossible to say what the work of these 
women had been.” 

The Levites were ordained. They were inducted into office with 
prescribed ceremonies. They were offered “a wave offering to 
Jehovah” (Num. viii:5-26). These women, being Levites and 
“ministering at the door of the tent of meeting,” would of neces- 
sity be ordained in the usual manner. 

As to the nature of the service of these “ministering women,” 
there must be more or less conjecture. They may have been 
singers and have “ministered unto the Lord in song.” They may 
have had other duties to perform. 

The services of the Levites were manifold. Aside from the 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION _ 111 


burdensome labor of erecting and removing the Tabernacle, and 
slaying of animals offered in sacrifice, they served as porters in 
the house of Jehovah; had oversight of the chambers and treas- 
uries; had care of the furniture and sacred vessels; prepared the 
“confections of spices’; took charge of the fine flour, oil, wine 
and frankincense; baked the shewbread “and things baked in 
pans.” Two hundred and eighty-eight ministered day and night 
unto the Lord in song. In the performance of some of these 
duties, “women ministered at the door of the tent of meeting.” 


It may be urged that during the Mosaic régime women were 
not admitted to the priesthood. We answer that were this the 
fact, it would afford no just ground for discriminating against the 
sex in the administration of divine ordinances in the present dis- 
pensation: 

(1) Because the priest was typical of Christ in His humanity. 
His incarnation was in the form of man. 

(2) Because the office of priest was done away in Christ. Dr. 
Hodge in his “Outlines of Theology,” p. 399, says: “No priestly 
function is ever attributed to any New Testament officer, inspired 
or uninspired, extraordinary or ordinary.” There is no office in 
the Christian church today corresponding to the office of priest. 
There is now “one Mediator between God and man, the Man 
Christ Jesus” (I Tim. 11:5). 

The minister of the Christian era corresponds with the Levite 
and prophet of the Levitical dispensation, and both these offices 
were open to women. Christian antiquaries affirm that from the 
third century, and onward, “Levite” was a frequent designation 
of a Christian minister. 

But did Mosaic legislation debar women from the priesthood? 
The assumption that it did has been well-nigh universal, but recent 
researches have reopened the question. Nowhere in Scripture is 
it recorded that women were ineligible to this office. The fact that 
the priesthood was given to “Aaron and his sons” is not infallible 
proof that women were excluded. As has been indicated else- 
where, the Hebrew word OD is, in numerous instances, rendered 
“children.” Exodus xxix:44, and Numbers xviii:7, we read: 


112 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


“Aaron and his sons (0°)3) will I sanctify, to minister to me in the 
priest’s office.” Leviticus vi:18, this same word 0°}3 occurs and we 
read; “Every male among the children (0°93) of Aaron.” Now if 
the translators had rendered in the latter passage, as in the former, 
the reading would be: “Every male among the sons of Aaron.” If 
on the other hand, they had translated 0°33 in Exodus xxix :44, 
as in Leviticus vi:18, we would have the following: “Aaron also 
and his children will I sanctify to minister to me in the priest’s 
office.” 

The Hebrew word 0°32 signifies “sons,” and also “children,” 
inclusive of both sexes. 

At this point we call attention to the Scripture phrase: ‘Males 
among the priests” (Lev. vi:29, vii:6; II Chron. xxxi:19). What 
is its import? There are but two explanations: 

I. That the reference here is to the male members of the priestly 
households. Let us examine this. It has been set forth with great 
confidence by those who are averse to the thought of women in 
the priesthood. Let us study the phrase in its context and weigh 
the difficulties that stand in the way of the common interpretation. 

Leviticus vi:29, “Every male among the priests shall eat thereof: 
it is most holy.” 

Leviticus vii :6, “Every male among the priests shall eat thereof: 
it shall be eaten in a holy place: it is most holy.” 

II Chronicles xxxi:19, “Also for the sons (0.33) of Aaron the 
priests, which were in the fields of the suburbs of their cities, in 
every several city, there were men that were expressed by name, 
to give portions to all the males among the priests, and to all that 
were reckoned by genealogy among the Levites.” 

The first two passages (Lev. vi:29, vii:6) are a part of the 
Levitical code, and are regulations concerning the eating of meal, 
sin, and trespass offerings. The last passage (II Chron. xxxi:19) 
relates to a decree of King Hezekiah regarding the distribution 
of accumulated tithes and oblations. 

In order to reach an impartial verdict concerning the import of 
the words: “Every male among the priests,” certain facts must 
be brought into review: 

(a) The territorial districts of the priestly cities. Some were 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 113 


near and some afar—as distances were computed in those days— 
from Jerusalem. 

(b) The inconveniences, and at times, perils of travel; afoot, 
on donkey or on camel back, or in palanquin; over winding bridle- 
paths or along unkept highways. The climatic conditions would 
add to the discomforts of travel. During the summer seasons 
there was intense heat. In the spring and fall there were the 
“early and latter rains”’—at times torrential downpours: During 
the winter months the cold chilled the wayfarer and imperiled 
health. There were also other dangers to be reckoned with. 
Jericho, a Levitical city, was only a few miles from Jerusalem, but 
so many robberies and murders were committed along this high- 
road that it was called “The Bloody Way.” In the song of 
Deborah we read: 


“In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, 
In the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, 
And the travellers walked through byways.” 


The Apostle Paul, in enumerating the hardships he endured, men- 
tions “perils of robbers.” This was not a condition peculiar to 
Palestine. It was characteristic of the age. Along the highways 
and mountain fastnesses of the Old World today are pointed out 
caverns which were once the rendezvous of banditti. 

_(c) The age at which the census of children was required— 
“A month old and upward” (Num. 111:39, 40, 43, e¢ al.). In his 
registration for the distribution of tithes and oblations, King 
Hezekiah reckoned children “From three years old and upward” 
(II Chron. xxxi:16). This was the age at which the Hebrew 
mother was supposed to wean her offspring. Leviticus vi:29 and 
vii:6, if applicable to the priestly household, would require the 
earlier enrollment. 

(d) The prolification of the Hebrew race, and size of the priestly 
family are also factors that must be considered. The attainment 
of majority was placed, for girls at about thirteen, for boys at 
fourteen. Celibacy was held in detestation, and marriages were 
consummated at an early period. Barrenness was counted a 
reproach, and a numerous progeny as a token of Divine favor. 


114 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


So far as records are available, the birth-rate of boys exceeded 
that of girls. Under these circumstances we are on safe ground 
when we estimate the average priestly household as alive with 
juveniles, and a large proportion of these males. 

(e) A fifth matter requiring special attention is the place where 
the meal, sin, and trespass offerings must be eaten—“in the courts 
of the Lord’s house” (Lev. vi:16, 26; vii:2, 6, 7, et al.). This 
law allowed for no exceptions. 

(f) The number of priests. During the Davidic reign a census 
showed 1,760 priests—at a subsequent period there was a con- 
siderable increase. By order of the King these were arranged in 
twenty-four courses, each of which served in turn, and for a 
designated period in the Sanctuary. This assignment made it 
necessary for a large number of priests to journey to or from the 
Holy City about the same time. 

Now if Leviticus vi:29 and vii:6 made it obligatory upon every 
male of the priestly family to partake of the meal, sin, and guilt 
offering in the courts of the Lord’s house, we must picture to 
ourselves a great number of priestly sires laboriously wending their 
way along unkept highways or narrow bridle paths, having in 
charge groups of children of various ages down to infants in arms. 
Those from distant cities must spend several days and nights en 
route. Food and lodging must be provided. If the weather proves 
inclement, the discomfort will be great, and, furthermore, a menace 
to the health. After anxious days and reposeless nights, the way- 
farers reach their destination, and invade the courts of the Temple 
—distraught sires, and a horde of tired and hungry children. The 
sacrificial meal is spread and partaken of amid confusion—it can- 
not be otherwise. Then what occurs? These wayworn fathers 
must don their priestly robes and begin their ministrations at the 
altar. But who will care for these children—boys of all ages— 
“every male” from the priestly household? What will become of 
them while their sires serve through long hours and days in the 
courts of the Lord’s house? These servants of Jehovah may not 
desert their tasks until their ministrations are accomplished. And 
how often must these priestly fathers undergo this ordeal? There 
is nothing in the record to indicate, but presumably as often as 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 115 


they “executed the priest’s office,’ in the order of their course. 
These are pertinent questions, and we may not parry them. 

It may be urged that a Jewish lad did not become “a son of the 
Law” until he attained the age of twelve years. This is conceded, 
but it has no bearing on this question. This was not a regulation 
of the Levitical code, but a provision of the Rabbim, and came 
into effect during the second Commonwealth. 

“Every male among the priests.” “All” and “every” are not 
synonymous. The former is frequently used with general import. 
It “sweeps in units” promiscuously, “as a part of a total.” It is 
generic, and exceptions are permissible. Peter and his fellow- 
disciples said to Jesus: “All are seeking Thee.” On another occa- 
sion Jesus said: “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all 
men unto Myself.” In these utterances it was not implied that 
each and every individual was indicated. The statements were 
general, “All” was a reference to the masses in totality. It is 
otherwise with the word “every.” It is specific and allows no 
exceptions or omissions. It “expresses the idea of all distribu- 
tively.” “All visualizes the crowd; “every” points to each indi- 
vidual in that assembly. “All” is general; “every” is particular. 

The Levitical law provided that “every male among the priests” 
should eat of the meal, sin, and guilt offerings in the holy place; 
in the courts of the Lord’s House. None were exempted. To 
extend this to the priestly household makes the execution of the 
law impracticable. 

A further objection to the foregoing interpretation is found in 
its singularity. It has, so far as the author’s investigation has 
extended, no parallel in ancient or modern literature. It is “a 
freak in exegesis’—a “marked deviation from the normal type.” 
It is without a precedent, and nothing in the nature of exegesis 
is found en train; it stands apart from the ordinary, a veritable 
landmark of prejudice. 

Suppose an edict should go forth that every male among physi- 
cians in a specified community should conform to a prescribed 
rule of conduct. Who, for an instant, would contend that this 
provision extended to the boys in the physicians’ households? 
Would it not, rather, be universally understood that the ordinance 


116 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


applied to male, but not to female, physicians? The phraseology 
employed would be certain proof that women, as well as men, 
practiced medicine in that community. No other construction 
would be put on the language. To question would be to invite 
ridicule. The same would be true concerning every trade and 
profession aside from the priesthood and Gospel ministry. In the 
realm of sacred literature expositors allow themselves a latitude 
that would not be tolerated elsewhere. 

The extraordinary exegesis of the phrase “every male among 
the priests” is to be accounted for in two ways: (1) An un- 
conscious prejudice on the part of those who offered it, and (2) to 
their a priori mode of reasoning. Instead of assembling all the 
Scripture facts concerning woman’s activities in the Old Testa- 
ment Church, and weighing them with open mind, and drawing 
conclusion; expositors start out prepossessed with the notion that 
no woman could serve in the priesthood. Without a scintillation 
of Old Testament proof to support such assumption, they lay 
down their proposition, and then exhaust their energies in trying 
to align the facts of Scripture and its teachings in sustentation of 
their postulate. , 

II. But the words “every male among the priests” have a second, 
and it seems to the author a far more natural interpretation. This 
makes the phrase “every male among the priests” a differentiation 
of the sexes. Certain duties were imposed on the one sex from 
which the other was exempted. In support of this view we offer 
the following facts for consideration: 

(1) Nowhere in the Old Testament can be found a passage 
even intimating that women were excluded from the priesthood. 
As has already been pointed out, the Hebrew word 0°33, in the 
oft recurring phrase: “Aaron and his sons,” is elsewhere, in 
numerous instances, translated “children.” 

(2) During the first Jewish Commonwealth, women officiated 
in every other capacity in the church—as singers in the Sacred 
Choir; as ministers at the door of the Tabernacle; as Nazarites, 
and as prophets. Under these circumstances it is unreasonable to 
assume, without Scripture warrant, that they were ineligible to 
the priesthood. | 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 117 


(3) Ministering at the altar on the part of women was not a 
novelty to the Hebrew mind. Many nations of antiquity had 
priestesses. A sojourn of four hundred years in Egypt would 
leave its impress. Arabia, which bordered on Palestine, and was 
inhabited by kindred races—descendants of Esau, Lot, and Ishmael 
—had women Kahin, the highest functionary of the Arabian re- 
ligion. 7 
(4) Any objection to women serving as priests could, with 
equal propriety, be urged against their being Nazarites. 

(5) Any exposition of Leviticus vi:29, and _yii:6, which denies 
the admission of women to the priesthood, is forced and unnatural, 
and, in addition thereto, makes the law itself impracticable. 

But a question may arise. If women served on a parity with 
men in this office, why were they granted immunity in the matter 
of eating the meal, sin, and guilt offerings in the courts of the 
Lord’s House, while “every male among the priests’ was straitly 
enjoined to partake thereof? 

This question may be answered by proposing another. Why 
was it “An ordinance in Israel” that all males must assemble before 
the Lord three times in the year, without mention of females? 
It is written in the law of the Lord—Deuteronomy xvi:16— 
“Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before Jehovah 
thy God in the place which He shall choose; in the feast of un- 
leavened bread, and the feast of weeks, and the feast of Taber- 
nacles.”’ 

Now a reference to Exodus xi1:3, 4, 26; Deuteronomy xvi:11, 
14, | Samuel i:1-21; Luke ii:41, will show that at the feasts here 
specified provision was made for the attendance of women. Every 
year thousands of the sex availed themselves of this privilege, but 
it was not obligatory. It was left to their own election. 

Perhaps no code ever formulated guarded so sedulously the 
health and general well-being of women as the Mosaic, and in the. 
requirements concerning feasts and sacrifices we have added evi- 
dence. What was compulsory for men was, at times, optional for 
women. The unkept highways and crude modes of transportation 
in those days made travel fatiguing, and at periods in a woman’s 
life, exhausting. This may account for the fact that only males 


118 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


were specified in Leviticus vi:29 and vii:6. But how about 
II Chronicles xxxi:19? On this occasion there was not strict con- 
formity to Levitical law, and a journey to Jerusalem was not a 
requirement. Why was it decreed that portions should be given 
to “all the males among the priests,” without mention of females? 

Let us study the context. King Hezekiah made proclamation, 
commanding the people to bring the portions appointed for the 
priests and Levites to the Sanctuary “that they might give them- 
selves to the law of Jehovah.” The response was so generous that 
a superabundance of first-fruits of grain, new wine, oil, honey, 
and all the increase of the field were brought to Jerusalem and 
piled in heaps in the Temple courts and in the store-chambers; 
beside tithes of oxen, sheep, and dedicated things. ‘The inflow 
continued for a period of four months, until there was enough 
and a “great store” left over. The King’s next concern was regard- 
ing the disposition of this surplus. He appointed overseers and 
charged them to make allotment to the various priestly cities and 
their suburbs. 

Right here we turn aside to study the registers used on this 
occasion. There were three: (1) The Tribal; (2) The Priestly; 
(3) The Levitical. We note them in their order: 

1. The Tribal: Every tribe in Israel had such a roster. The 
Hebrews, as all the nations of antiquity, required a registration 
of all males soon after birth in order to furnish information as to 
the time when they would be available for warfare. 

2. The Priestly: This was an enrollment of “them that were 
reckoned by genealogy of the priests by their fathers’ houses.” 
If women served in this office, their names would appear on this 
register. 

A careful reading of the record (II Chron. xxxi:15-18) will 
disclose the fact that the first distribution of tithes and oblations on 
this occasion was preferential. The priests who were reckoned by 
genealogy of their “fathers’ houses,” took precedence of such as 
were not so validated. The words: “Besides them,” in verse 16, 
are not without signification. “Besides them’—that is besides the 
preferred—a subsequent distribution was made “To their brethren 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 119 


by courses, as well to the great as to the small’ (II Chron. 
KXKIRTS ) 

But how came it to pass that priests without certified lineage 
were permitted in this office? The Hebrews guarded with scru- 
pulous care these family and tribal records. Strictest surveillance 
was kept over the priestly register, but here, in the account as 
given in II Chronicles xxxi, we find priests who were not reckoned 
by genealogy after their “fathers’ houses.” How do we account 
for it? 

We ask the reader to turn to II Samuel vii:18 and note this 
record: “And David’s sons were priests.” King David was of 
the tribe of Judah, “as to which tribe Moses spake nothing con- 
cerning priests,’ but here in clear, bold type it is written: “And 
David’s sons were priests” (03713). King James’translators deemed 
this an impossibility, and rendered the passage: “David’s sons were 
chief rulers.” The 1884 Revisers gave the correct reading: 
“And David’s sons were priests,” but wrote in the margin, as 
alternative rendering—‘“Chief ministers.’ The American Re- 
visers reversed this order, placing “Chief ministers” in the text 
and “Priests” in the margin. 

The author takes exception to this unprecedented departure from 
the uniform rendering of the Hebrew word }fj> . It signifies 
“priest,” and nowhere in Sacred Writ, aside from II Samuel 5 
vili:18, has its import been called in question. We accept the 
passage as it stands in the Hebrew text: “And David’s sons were 
priests.” 

But how could these men, being members of the tribe of Judah, 
function in the priesthood? It was written in the law of Moses: 
“Thou shalt appoint Aaron and his sons (0°33), and they shall 
keep their priesthood: and the stranger that cometh nigh shall 
be put to death.” Now it is not supposable that King David 
would set at nought the Divine prohibition, and place his own 
sons in this sacred office. We face a dilemma. Shall we, like 
the meddlesome scribe of the second and third centuries, tamper 
with the inspired text, to bring it into conformity to our predilec- 
tions? Shall we follow the lead of translators and inject new 
meaning into the word i> ? Or shall we accept the passage as 


120 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


recorded in Holy Writ, and search diligently for a reasonable 
explanation? In the judgment of the author, the last course is 
the safest one to pursue. 

There was a way, and so far as the writer knows, one only, by 
which a man in Israel could change his tribal relations—by Beena 
marriage. This form of nuptial contract is noted in Chapter V 
of this volume. If the sons of King David wedded daughters of 
priests, and the alliance was of Beena type, they would sever 
relation with the tribe of Judah, and be joined to the tribe and 
family of their wives. In II Chronicles xxxi, we found priests 
who were not reckoned by “their fathers’ houses.” The explana- 
tion is simple. These men, in all probability, came into the tribe 
of Levi and into the family of Aaron by Beena marriage. Under 
such circumstances they could not be registered by their fathers’ 
houses. To do so would connect them with a tribe aside from 
that of Levi. All such were priests without genealogy by their 
fathers’ houses. 

It can readily be seen why a man about to wed the daughter of 
a priest would choose the Beena marriage. It not only made him 
a member of the tribe of Levi, and of the Aaronic family, but 
also assured the rights of priesthood to his descendants. But 
this law operated with equal force in the opposite direction. It 
disbarred as well as initiated. Ezra ii:62, 63; also Nehemiah 
vii :64, 65, we find mention of two priests, Hobaiah and Hakkoz. 
These men wedded daughters of Barzillai, the Gileadite, and 
were “called after their name.” The last declaration—‘“called 
after their name,” proves that these were Beena marriages. Bar- 
zillai “was a very great man” (II Sam. xix:32), which here 
signifies wealth. The law of Israel forbade an heiress to wed 
outside her tribe, lest she alienate her inheritance (Num. xxxvi). 
In order to consummate marriage with the daughters of Barzillai, 
it was necessary for Hobaiah and Hakkoz to ally themselves with 
the tribe to which these women belonged. After the return from 
exile, the offspring of these two men sought admission to the 
priesthood, but were rejected because their names were not found 
on the Aaronic roster. Their fathers had contracted Beena mar- 
riage with women of another tribe, and the genealogy of their 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 121 


descendants was reckoned in the mothers’ line: “Therefore they 
were polluted from the priesthood.” 

3. The third register resorted to in the distribution of the tithes 
and oblations by King Hezekiah was the Levitical. This was an 
enrollment of all the Levites from twenty years old and upward 
by their courses. On this occasion, only such as “were reckoned 
by genealogy” were beneficiaries. This requirement indicates that 
there were men ministering in this order who were not so reg- 
istered. As in the case of the priests, their only ingress would 
be by Beena Marriage. 

After allotting portions to the priests, their wives, sons and 
daughters, and to the Levites who were reckoned by genealogy, 
and to their families, throughout the thirteen priestly cities, the 
decree went forth that the residue of the tithes and oblations 
should be apportioned to “all the males among the priests” and 
“to all that were reckoned by genealogy among the Levites,” 
dwelling in “the fields of the suburbs.” 

We must bear in mind that the program of this distribution 
was in accordance with the King’s commandment, and not in strict 
conformity to Levitical law. An emergency had arisen, and 
Hezekiah, like Solomon at the dedication of the Temple (I Kings 
vili :64.), departed from the letter of the law. 

In the final decree, verse 19, we meet with the words, “all the 
males among the priests,’ and here, as in Leviticus vi:29 and 
vii:6, explanation is required. 

1. Commentators averse to the thought that women were eligible 
to the priesthood allow but one interpretation, viz., that “all the 
males among the priests,” signifies in this instance, as in Leviticus 
vi:29 and vii:6, male members of the priestly households. We 
may not offer here one of the objections urged against such ex- 
position of the former passages. It was not, on this occasion, 
required of priestly sires to journey, in company with every male 
of their families, to Jerusalem. The vulnerability in this case is 
found in the fact that Levitical Law expressly enjoined that both 
sexes share the offerings specified in this distribution—‘“First 
fruits of grain,’ “new wine,” “oil,” ... and “of all the increase 
of the field”; “tithes,” “vows,” “free-will,” and “peace offerings” 


122 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


(Lev. x<14 3) Nunh< xviii :11-13,4193;, Deut.) xii :11, 12, 17, 18; IT 
Chron. xxxi:5, 6, 14). If Hezekiah set at nought this provision 
of the Law, it can only be reckoned an arbitrary ruling of the 
King, and may not serve as a precedent. 

2. The second explanation of the phrase under discussion re- 
quires admission that women functioned as priests. This accounts 
for its rejection by the great body of expositors. If there is one 
article of their creed concerning women that expounders of Sacred 
Writ have announced with a certitude above all others, it is that 
which taught that, under Mosaic Law, women were debarred from 
the priesthood. But truth cannot be wounded unto death by false 
exegesis. Though crucified, consigned to a rock-hewn tomb, and 
sealed with seven seals, it will have its Easter morn. It is doubtful 
if this article of the commentators’ faith can stand the test of 
scholarship through another generation. It is out of plumb, and 
built on a sandy foundation. 

If the second explanation is the correct one, Hezekiah’s decree 
would work no hardship to women priests residing in the suburbs. 
A reference to II Chronicles xxxi:18 shows that in the distribution 
throughout the cities the number of persons in each family was 
taken into consideration. There is nothing to indicate that it was 
otherwise in the suburbs. If a woman priest was married, she 
shared in the allotment to her husband’s household; if unmarried, 
she was accounted a member of her father’s family; if a widow 
dwelling apart, Levitical Law made special provision in her behalf 
(Deut. xiv :29, Xvi:I0, II, xxiv:19-21, xxvi:I2, 13). 

In further study of the claim that women were eligible to the 
priesthood, certain passages in the Pentateuch may be offered as 
negations, ¢.g.: 


Exodus xiii:12, “Thou shalt set apart unto Jehovah all that 
openeth the womb, and every firstling which thou hast that cometh 
of a beast; the male shall be Jehovah’s.” 

Exodus xiii:15, “I sacrifice unto Jehovah all that openeth the 
womb, being males.” 

Exodus xxxiv:19, “All that openeth the womb is mine; and all 
thy cattle that is male.” 

Deuteronomy xv:19, “All the firstling males that are born of 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 123 


thy herd and of thy flock thou shalt sanctify unto Jehovah thy 
God.” 


Now this setting apart of firstborn males, both of man and beast, 
and sanctifying them to Jehovah, may by some be regarded as a 
prefigurement of the priesthood, especially so because of the fact 
that during the wilderness journey the Levites—the priestly tribe 
—were substituted for the firstborn of Israel. Owing to the speci- 
fication of males in the foregoing passages, inference is drawn that 
females were rejected, and, as the ordinance was symbolic of the 
priesthood, women would be ineligible to this office. Let us analyze 
the argument: 

(1) We note the purpose of this “ordinance in Israel’; it was 
commemorative of the slaying of the firstborn of the Egyptians 
and the preservation of the Israelites: Exodus xiii:14-16, “And it 
shall be, when thy son asketh thee in the time to come, saying, 
What is this, thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand Jehovah 
brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage: and it 
came to pass, when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that Jehovah 
slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of 
man, and the firstborn of beast: therefore I sacrifice to Jehovah all 
that openeth the womb, being males.” Numbers iii:13, “For all 
the firstborn are mine; in the day that I smote all the firstborn in 
the land of Egypt I hallowed unto me all the firstborn in Israel, 
both man and beast; mine they shall be: I am Jehovah.” 

(2) That this hallowing of the firstborn in no sense prefigured 


the priesthood is evident; otherwise only firstborn individuals s, 


could minister at the altar, and only firstborn male animals be 
offered in sacrifice. The Levitical code imposed no such re- 
strictions. 

But why this specification of males and this passing by of fe- 
males? Does it not indicate the Divine election of the male sex 
for sacerdotal service? At this point the reliability of our current 
text becomes at once an issue. We avail ourself of the scholarly 
treatment of the subject by Dr. Ismar J. Peritz, in his treatise, 
“Woman in the Ancient Hebrew Cult.” Dr. Peritz is not only a 
man of scholarly attainment, but a Hebrew by birth; this latter fact 
adds weight to his testimony. He says (pp. 133-135) : 


124 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


“The law of the firstling with its emphasis upon the firstborn 
male might at first sight appear as a very formidable objection to 
woman’s inclusion in the cult; but upon careful examination the 
facts here will be found in harmony with those already adduced. 

“That the later legislation counts the male only cannot be ques- 
tioned (Nu. 3:40ff. [P]). But it seems to me altogether doubtful 
whether this was also the case in the earlier legislation. But as 
this has been assumed, without a dissenting voice, to have always 
been so, one feels the need of much courage to call it in question. 
Yet there are weighty considerations against this assumption that 
have a right to a hearing. 

“The origin of the consecration of the firstling is found, as W. R. 
Smith has pointed out (Rel. of Sem., p. 444), in something of the 
nature of taboo of the first produce, having its proper parallel in 
the vegetable kingdom in the law of Lev. xix :23/f., which ordains 
that for three years the fruit of a new orchard shall be treated as 
‘uncircumcised’ and not eaten. This being the case, and as we 
have found no discrimination against female victims in offerings 
in general, we might argue on general grounds against the prob- 
ability of an original discrimination here. There is, however, far 
more direct evidence that no such discrimination existed in the 
earliest times: I mention: 

(a) The term O77 10 or Ww Wp. It is repeated so often 
that we can scarcely go amiss seeing in it the central idea of the 
custom and the law. But if this be so, its limitation to a 13] prac- 
tically annuls it by introducing an entirely different element which 
takes its emphasis. If there be any meaning or force in the “6b, 
the 7D} dissipates it. It does, therefore, seem improbable that they 
both belonged to the original idea, and far more probable that 
that was contained in the 7, irrespective whether it was male 
or female, in agreement with the idea of the taboo of the first 
produce. Cf. also the b> in OMT WP 5D (hot St 12) Hz oxo 

(b) W. R. Smith has also called attention to the fact ‘in the 
period immediately before the exile, when sacrifices of firstborn 
children became common, these grisly offerings were supposed to 
fall under the law of firstlings’ (Jer. vii:31, xix:5; Ez. xx:26).? 
But this being so, the passage in Jeremiah, stating that that which 
was done to O7J2 was also done to O7°NI2, shows that still at 


1Tbid. p. 445. 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 125 


that time the female was included in the law of the firstling. 

(c) A careful examination of the working of the texts of the 
law reveals the fact that the word 431 (male) has only a very 
doubtful place in them. To facilitate such examination, I present 
the following tabulated form of the law: 


Tv) Hx xi: 
yin %> mamas) oa Sew a2 OMI b> awe 722 5D > wip 


iid et Xe Kil 12, ko 
“> mI Awe AAD Tw WD 5D) MIN ONT Ww OD Nay 
smm> (amin) 
pny W193 52) InN|Ay) ATOM 8d ON) AWA AID|N jm wD do) 
IN PII2 


3. E. Ex. xxii:28: 2% Jnn Pa WIS 


40 J HO EX) xxx1vil9, 20: 
mw) Mw YB (DIN) ype 521° ana ~wE 5d 
AIAN Pya 22 5D wn_ yy AI|N 8? ON) AWD AIDN 7M 7HE) 


BU RV +10. 
spnbs mid wapn Com) 73x82) Fp22 IY awk Dan 5D 


6. P. Nu. 111:40ff.: 
20 Synws 25 727 N22 99 APP nw dx AAD AORN 


“It is to be noticed, in'the first place, that in passages 3 and 1, 
evidently the oldest form of the law, no specification is made that 
the consecrated firstborn must be a male. For I take it that 722 
may stand for ‘thy children’ as well as for ‘thy sons’ and, as 
the term 452 has a feminine as well as a masculine plural, it may 
be either masculine or feminine. Cf. Ges.—Kautzsch’ ed. 26, § 
87, 3; and the feminines in 138¥ MIDID NNN Od NAA SAM 
2) ynadma) in Gen. iv:4. 

“We note secondly: If the syntactical position of OM DIN in 2 
and the corrupt DIN in 4 be examined, and compared with the 
position of 45) in 6, it will be seen that in the first two passages, 
as well as in 5, the word has all the appearance of not being an 
original part of the sentence but of being an afterthought, a gloss. 


126 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


“And, thirdly, the term “27 is peculiar to P. JE, it is well 
known, uses NWS) wX in the place of P’s Map AD (ef. 
Gen. vii: 2 and 9), and the term nowhere else occurs in JE (cf. 
Brown and Driver’s Gesenius’s Lex., s.v. "D} ).1 These three 
facts together, as it seems to me, can lead to but one conclusion, 
namely, that the term 721 (male) in Ex. xiii:12, xxxiv:1g, and 


probably also in Dt. xv:19, is due to a later glossing by a source, 


related to P, and that its object was to bring into harmony the 
earlier with the later custom. 

“And altogether our examination of the law of the firstlings, far 
from pointing to the exclusion of the female from the cult, is but 
another indication that in earlier times no discrimination was made 
against the female, but that perfect parity existed between the sexes 
in matters of the cult.” 


We underscore these statements by Dr. Peritz: “A careful 
examination of the wording of the texts of the law reveals the 
fact that the word “>i (male) has only a very doubtful place 
in them.’ (The word “male” is placed in parenthesis by the 
author for the benefit of readers unacquainted with Hebrew.) 
“In passages 3 and 1, evidently the oldest form of the law, no 
specification 1s made that the consecrated firstborn must be male.” 
“The word (male) has all the appearance of not being an original 


part of the sentence but of being an Leg ai gloss; “ihe 


term “Di (male) 1s peculiar to P.”’ ©&¢' 

Other facts must be taken into consideration: 

(1) Elsewhere in Scripture, where there is mention of. the in- 
stitution of this ordinance, the word “male” does not appear (Ex. 
xiii:2; Nu, 11:12, 13, vili:17, xvili:1 53 Ps. Ixxvii:51, cxxxv:8; 
Cv 330) exxxvi:10). In Exodus xxxiv:20 and Nehemiah x:36 
the term 0°32 (sons) is used, but as has been repeatedly noted, 
this word is of common gender and applies to both sexes. 

(2) There is no intimation in Scripture that the firstborn of 
“the Egyptians, slain on the occasion of the Exodus, were all males. 
This is an unwarrantable assumption. The expressions, “All the 
firstborn in the land of Egypt’; “There was not a house where 


1 This does not apply to the peculiar form 33) found in Ex. 23:17; 34:23. 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 127 


there was not one dead,” does not support such conclusion. Also 
in the preservation of the Israelites there was not sex discrimina- 
tion. In the institution of the commemorative ordinance the com- 
mand was: “Sanctify unto me all the firstborn, whatsoever openeth 
the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of 
beast.” These facts lend weight to Dr. Peritz’s supposition that 
the term “male,” in the aforementioned passages, is not “An 
original part of the sentence,” but “An afterthought, a gloss.” 


Our next consideration is the substitution of the Tribe of Levi 
for the firstborn of Israel (Num. ii1:11-13, 40-51). We read: 

“And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, And I, behold, I have 
taken the Levites from among the children of Israel instead of all 
the firstborn that openeth the womb among the children of Israel; 
and the Levites shall be mine: for all the firstborn are mine; on 
the day that I smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt I hal- 
lowed unto me all the firstborn in Israel, both man and beast; 
mine they shall be: I am Jehovah” (Num. 111:11-13). 

“And thou shalt take the Levites for me (I am Jehovah) instead 
of all the firstborn among the children of Israel; and the cattle of 
the Levites instead of all the firstling among the cattle of the chil- 
dren of Israel” (Num. iii:41). 

Now it will be noted that it was the TripE of Levi that was 
chosen—not the male half. There is here no intimation of sex 
discrimination. At once we are countered with the reminder that 
in verses 40 and 43, where the numbering of the firstborn is com- 
manded, males are specified : 

III:40, ‘““And Jehovah said unto Moses, Number all the first- 
born males of the children of Israel from a month old and upward, 
and take the number of their name.” 

III :43, “And all the firstborn males according to the number 
of names, from a month old and upward, of those that were 
numbered of them, were twenty and two thousand two hundred 
and three score and thirteen.” 

Now the question arises would not this numbering of males to 
the exclusion of females, on the occasion of the substitution of 
the tribe of Levi, inferentially at least, debar woman from the 


128 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


priesthood? For answer we point the reader to the words of 
Dr. Peritz. Numbers iii:40 is one of the passages called in 
question ; not only so, but he adds the significant letters—ff. This 
brings in iii:43 also. Of the four Hebrew texts of the law ex- 
_ amined by Dr. Peritz, but one—‘‘P”—has the term “male” in the 
“passages under review; and furthermore the texts wherein the 
word “male” does not occur, antedate P. 

Other facts also claim attention: 

(1) If—foregoing the question of the reliability of the text— 
the specification of males would debar women from the priesthood, 
then the specification of firstborn would debar all other males 
from the same office. red 

(2) The registration on the occasion ibs ite dibsttution of the 
Levites was a tribal census, and not an enrollment of individuals 
eligible to the priesthood, nor even to Levitical service. This is 
evidenced by the following facts: (1) It was a general enumera- 
tion and embraced children “from a month old and upward”; and, 
notwithstanding that dubious word “male,’ probably of both 
sexes. Naturally among those listed there would be a considerable 
number of defectives. All such would be ineligible to the priest- 
hood. (2) The requirements for Levitical service are given in 
the fourth chapter of Numbers, and the registration on a dif- 
ferent basis—“From thirty years old and upward even unto fifty 
years old, all that enter upon the service, to do the work in the 
tent of meeting.” (3) Any one acquainted with the requirements 
for the priesthood will readily understand that the enrollment at 
the time of the substitution of the tribe of Levi was inadequate to 
determine eligibility to this office. A reference to Leviticus xxi and 
Ezekiel xliv will show that a test more rigorous than that of 
sex was applied. It is remarkable that among the disablements 
enumerated that of being a woman is not mentioned. 

In closing this discussion on woman’s eligibility for the priest- 
hood, we subjoin the following excerpts from Dr. Peritz’s val- 
uable thesis: 


“The current opinion on woman’s relation to the Hebrew cult 
is by no means based upon a special and direct investigation of 
the subject” (p. 114). 





DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 129 


“The conclusion to which the facts thus treated have led me, 
if I may here anticipate, is that the Semites in general, and the 
Hebrews in particular, and the latter especially in the earlier 
period of their history, exhibit no tendency to discriminate between 
man and woman so far as regards participation in religious prac- 
tices, but that woman participated in all the essentials of the 
cult, both as worshipper and official; and that only in the later 
time, with the progress in the development of the cult itself, a 
tendency appears, not so much, however, to exclude woman from 
the cult, as rather to make man prominent in it” (p. 114). 

“We have reason to look to other Semitic cults for light’ (p. 
II5). 

“The fundamental institutions of the Israelites had a common 
origin with those of other Semitic peoples. The relation of woman 
to other Semitic cults has therefore a vital bearing on our ques- 
Hon? (Pen T5)4 

Regarding woman’s position in the Arabic. cult, he says: 

“The facts, as collected mainly from\Wellhausen’s Reste ara- 
bischen Heidentumes, lead to the conclusion that this relation is 
one of almost perfect parity with that of man, there being not 
the slightest indication that the question of sex from a religious 
point of view ever comes into consideration” (p. 115). 

“We find, therefore, in ancient Israel and in the act of sacrifice 
women enjoyed equal rights with men” (p. 127). 


Under the Old Testament economy woman could be a Nazarite. 
Numbers vi:I, 2, we read: “And Jehovah spake unto Moses, say- 
ing, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When 
either man or woman shall make a special vow, the vow of a 
Nazarite, to separate himself unto Jehovah,” etc. The valuation 
of vowers, indicated in Leviticus xxvii, was according to the 
ability to pay. 

Geikie affirms that the lifelong Nazarite “stood on an equality 
with the priest and could enter the Holy Place.” We quote from 
the “Jewish Encyclopedia” : 

“Both persons, men and women, took Nazarite vows.” “He is 
holy unto the Lord” (Num. vi:8), and the regulations which 
apply to him actually agree with those for the high priest and 
for priests during worship (Lev. x:8, etc., xxi, Ezek. xliv:21). 


130 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


“Tn ancient times the priests were persons dedicated to God (Ezek. 
xliv:20, I Sam. i:11), and it follows from the juxtaposition of 
prophets and Nazarites (Amon 11:11, 12) that the latter must 
have been regarded as in a sense priests.” 


We quote also from Scribner’s “Bible Dictionary”: 


“The Nazarite was evidently of a much more manifold char- 
acter and played a greater part in the religious life of Israel than 
the law in Numbers suggests.” 

“Tn respect of all uncleanness due to contact with the dead... . 
In this respect, so long as his vow lasted, the Nazarite stood on 
a level with the Levitically holiest person among the people, viz., 
the High Priest.” 


Dr. Hastings in his “Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics,” says: 


“Tn a certain sense, the Nazarite’s life partook of the nature of 
the priestly as well as the prophetic office.” In the New Schaff and 
Herzog “Religious Encyclopedia,” we read: “In the case of the 
Nazarite, there is a connection with the priesthood found in the 
prohibition of contact with the dead, even of participation in the 
mourning ceremonies for his own kin, showing the sanctity of the 
Nazarite; this is illustrated by the fact that the Talmudic tract, 
Nazir (vii:1) places the Nazarite and the High Priest on the 
same footing.” 


The probabilities are that Anna the prophetess, mentioned in 
Luke ii:36, 37, was a Nazarite. She “departed not from the 
Temple, worshipping with fastings and supplications night and 
day.” Ranged around three sides of the Temple were chambers 
or cloisters “for the abode of the priests and attendants and for 
the keeping of treasures and stores.” In one of these the 
prophetess may have dwelt, for she “departed not from the Tem- 
ple worshipping with fastings and supplications night and day.” 


The highest office in the Old Testament Church was that of 
prophet. The priest officiated as man’s representative ; the prophet, 
as God’s. Dr. Geikie says of John the Baptist, that though a 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 131 


hereditary priest, he chose the “higher mission of prophet.” Moses, 
the prophet, instructed, commanded and even rebuked Aaron, the 
High Priest. This, the highest office in the Old Testament Church, 
was held by woman. The first to be mentioned as such was: 


MIRIAM (Ex. xv:20) 

Attention may be called to the fact that this woman was smitten 
with leprosy. That is true, but not for invading a forbidden 
sphere, but because she “spake against Moses because of the 
Cushite woman he had married” (Num. xii). Aaron the High 
Priest shared her offense ; the pronoun throughout is in the plural: 
“And they said, Hath Jehovah indeed spoken only with Moses? 
Hath He not spoken also with us?” Both were reprimanded. 
Jehovah said: “Wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak 
against My servant, against Moses?” -Aaron in his plea to Moses 
said: “Oh, my lord, lay not, I pray thee, sin upon us, for that we 
have done foolishly, and for that we have sinned.” On this 
occasion, Miriam was the chief offender. Notwithstanding the 
high official position of Aaron, her name takes precedence of his. 

In anticipation of what Dr. Peritz has to say concerning this 
woman we quote from I Samuel ix:9: “Beforetime in Israel, when 
a man went to inquire of God, thus he said, Come and let us go 
to the seer: (AN) for he that is now called a Prophet (8°33) was 
beforetime called a Seer, (ANT) e.g., I Chron. ix:22 “Whom 
David and Samuel the seer (AN) did ordain in their set office.” 
This passage of Scripture will afford light on the following by 
the aforementioned author : 


“In Numbers xii (referred to also in Deut. xxiv:9), belonging to 
the earliest tradition (JE), we have a detailed account of an inci- 
dent which purports to involve the question of the relative official 
rank of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. The contention was occa- 
sioned by the marriage of Moses with a Cushite woman, and par- 
takes of the nature of a family quarrel. ‘Hath Jehovah indeed 
spoken only with Moses? hath he not spoken also with us?’ (v. 2), 
say Miriam and Aaron; and as Dillmann has pointed in (in loc.), 
the feminine 735N) would show that Miriam was the instigator. 
The claim that her words imply is prophetic rank and authority 


132 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


for herself and Aaron equal to those of Moses. In the settle- 
ment of the dispute by the intervention of Jehovah, it becomes 
apparent that her claim of prophetic rank is not denied, and she, 
as well as Aaron, bears the title of ‘prophet’; only to Moses is 
ascribed the official preéminence, while she, as the instigator of the 
insubordination, has to bear the brunt of the punishment. 
“While the incident thus brings out Moses’ preéminence, it at the 
same time asserts the official equality of Miriam and Aaron. That 
the whole incident is brought into intimate connection with the 
“Yio brs (tent of meeting), the center of the religious cult, 
is certainly significant. If to this be added the facts, that occasion 
is taken to state that Miriam is the sister of Aaron (Ex. xv:20), 
and that in the earlier genealogical list her descent is traced back 
to Levi (Num. xxvi:59; I Chron. vi:3; Ex. vi:20 [P] does not 
mention her), while throughout she is conspicuously associated 
with Aaron and Moses as a leader of the religious community, the 
conclusion can scarcely be avoided that, as Deborah, like Samuel, 
so Miriam like Moses and Aaron, is an example of a seer in 
whom, in the manner of that time, the functions of prophet and 
priest are combined. The probability of this inference is height- 
ened, if in this connection again we call to mind the activity of 
prophetesses in other Semitic religions, and woman’s part as 
diviner in connection with the oracles later proscribed by the 
religion of Jehovah” (Woman in the Ancient Hebrew Cult, p. 144). 


Exodus xv:20, Miriam is called “The prophetess”—the woman 
prophet. Hodge, in his “Outlines of Theology,” p. 395, in 
answer to the question: “What is the Scriptural sense of the word 
prophet?” says: “A prophet of God is one qualified and authorized 
to speak for God to men. Foretelling future events is only inci- 
dental.” Geikie in “Life and Words of Christ,” Vol. I, p. 393, 
says: “A prophet in the Jewish point of view was less a seer than 
a fearless preacher.’ Sanballat said to Nehemiah, “Thou hast 
also appointed prophets to preach of thee at Jerusalem” (Neh. 
vi:7). Gesenius defines prophecy as “The utterances of the 
prophets, whether as reproving the wicked, predicting future 
events, or announcing the commands of God.” But we have a 
Scripture definition (I Cor. xiv:3), “He that prophesieth speakest 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 133 


unto men edification, and comfort, and consolation.” Verse 4, 
“He that prophesieth edifieth the church.” 

Narrowing the office of the prophet down to the foretelling 
of future events has been characterized as “The Sunday-school 
idea.” The prophets were preachers, “foretelling future events 
was only incidental.” 

Miriam was a prophet, and the author knows of nothing in 
the whole range of Biblical or ecclesiastical literature that war- 
rants differentiating between the office and work of the male 
and female prophet. The prophetess was a woman preacher, and 
she spoke with, ‘“Thus saith the Lord,” e.g., Judges v:4, 6; II Kings 
xx11:14, 15; II Chronicles xxxiv :23, 26. 

Smend says of the prophetess Miriam that she was probably 
“more prominent than the tradition represents.” 


DEBORAH 
She was also Judge and warrior, and Dr. Peritz claims for her 
the rank of seer. Again we quote his words: 


“There seems to me no sufficient ground to call in question the 
activity of women as seers in the pre-monarchic period in Israel’s 
history, as has been done by Stade, Montefiore, and others. If 
early Hebrew tradition is of any historical value whatever, it 
speaks of a prophetess Deborah as distinctly as of a prophet 
Samuel, whatever that term may have. In like manner do the 
earliest traditions prominently associate with Moses and Aaron as 
head of the Israelitish community their sister the prophetess 
Miriam (Mic. vi:4; Ex. xv:20; Num. xii, xx:1). But how are 
we to interpret the term ANX33 as used here? There can be but the 
one way, it seems to me, which has its basis in the explanation in 
I Samuel ix:9, and according to which the earlier Hebrew 8°23 
wasa AX or FIN. To say this of Samuel, and to call Deborah 
‘eine weise Frau, seems an inconsistent choice of the word when 
used in speaking of woman. There is not the slightest reason for 
such a distinction, and, in fact, none is assigned; so it seems but 
fair to ask that the word be allowed to mean the same thing in 
both cases, in that of Deborah as in that of Samuel. And all the 
more so because the principal function of ‘Judge’ whether in the 
earlier sense of ‘vindicator’ or in the latter sense of ‘giving judi- 


134 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


cial decisions’ is ascribed to the one as much as to the other. 
(Cf. Jud. iv:5 and I Sam. vii:16, cf. Moore, Judges, in loco.) 

If, as may therefore be justly claimed, Deborah was a seer, then 
all the light which recent investigation has thrown upon the origin 
and function of the seer is at our service. If the office of seer, 
as is held by Stade (Gesch i1:468-473), had its origin in the belief 
that some persons were specially possessed by the divinity; if 
its function was by means of visions, to reveal the divine will; if, 
as is illustrated by the case of Samuel, it was intimately connected 
with the sanctuary; if, as is indicated by the relation of the 
Hebrew and Arabic terms Kahin, the office of priest and seer 
were once identical, and the old Israelitish priesthood originated in 
the settlement of some seers at a permanent sanctuary (cf. Wellh., 
Heid, p. 130ff., 167), then the function of prophetess had an origin 
in common with the highest cultic function in Israel, the priest- 
hood, and this function was, at one time, open, to some extent, to 
women. ‘To claim this for Samuel seems perfectly natural, for, 
of course, we find in his case clear indications of such fusion 
of seer and priest. But the inference that such was the case also 
when woman filled the same office is perfectly reasonable, and by 
no means lacks more definite confirmation. Woman’s relation to 
the teraphim, the oracle of the dead, and divination, as developed 
above, is here in point, but additional evidences in the same direc- 
tion and within the Jahveh cult come to us in the case of Miriam” 
(Woman in the Ancient Hebrew Cult, pp. 143, 144). 


There are three points in the foregoing we wish to emphasize: 

(1) The Scripture declared that “a prophet was beforetime 
called a seer” (I Sam. ix:g). 

(2) That Miriam and Deborah were among the earliest prophets 
of Israel. 

(3) That the seer functioned both as prophet and as priest. 

Add to these the further fact that in Arabia, a border country, 
inhabited by a kindred people, “Women were numerous as Kahin 
—seer or prophet.” 


HULDAH (II Kings xxii:14-20; II Chron. xxxiv :22-28) 
During the reign of Josiah, we find the Prime Minister, the 
Secretary of State and the High Priest, at the King’s command, 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 135 


seeking the word of the Lord at the mouth of this woman. And 
she spoke with, “Thus saith Jehovah” (II Kings xxii:15-19; II 
Chron. xxxiv :23-27). At this time Jeremiah and Zephaniah were 
prophesying in Judah, but there is no record in Sacred Writ that 
they were consulted. The highest dignitary of the church and the 
chief officers of State were sent unto “Huldah the prophetess.” 
In such esteem was this woman held that one of the gates of the 
Temple was named in her honor. Rabbinical literature affirms 
that she “was not only a prophet, but taught publicly in the 
School” (Targ. to II Kings xxii:14). The Authorized Version 
renders this passage: “Now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the col- 
lege”; the Revised Version, “Now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the 
second quarter.” The Hebrew text reads, “Now she dwelt in 
Jerusalem in the Mishneh.” She was held in such veneration that, 
aside from those of the house of David, her tomb was the only 
one tolerated within the walls of Jerusalem (Geikie’s “Life of 
Christ, Voltlk. pi2o2): 

Two other women prophets are mentioned in Scripture: The 
wife of Isaiah (Isa. viii:3), and Noadiah (Neh. vi:14). 


During the first Jewish Commonwealth, there were schools of 
the Prophets. In Scripture there is mention of such establish- 
ment at Gibeah (I Sam. x:5); Bethel (II Kings 11:3) ; Jericho 
(II Kings ii:5, 7, 15, 16); Gilgal (II ae iv:38). The prob- 
abilities are there were also others. 

Now a question arises—Were women admitted to these schools? 
Were they numbered among “The sons (0°33) of the prophets’’? 
We might—as has been the age-long custom in matters concerning 
women—assume that they were not, but one-sided assumptions in 
time breed distrust. One begins to inquire if, after all, the wish 
is not “father to the thought”? The stock phrase—“Of course 
not’”—no longer settles controversy. Our study thus far has 
revealed the fact that Mosaic legislation seldom, if ever, dis- 
criminated against woman. Her ecclesiastical rights were almost, 
if not wholly, unabridged. Even during the second common- 
wealth, after contact with heathen laws and customs had told on 
the popular mind, she enjoyed larger privileges than is at times 


136 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


supposed. According to the author of “Synagogue Religion and 
Worship” there were women readers in the Synagogue. It was 
their office to read and translate prayers for the benefit of the 
less learned. They were called ““Versagerin’”—“Women Readers.” 
After Samuel had made known to Saul that he would be king over 
Israel, he gave him, among others, the following sign: “Thou 
shalt come to the hill of God, where is the garrison of the Philis- 
tines: and it shall come to pass, when thou art come thither to 
the city, that thou shalt meet a band of prophets coming down 
from the high place with a psaltery, and timbrel, and a pipe, and 
a harp, before them, and they will be prophesying” (I Sam. x:5). 
Attention has elsewhere been called to the fact that the timbrel 
was an instrument played almost exclusively by women. It is 
conceded that in this particular instance, it is not conclusive proof 
of the sex of the player, but it leaves room for assumption—and 
that of unusual kind. 

Women were “Versagerin” in the Synagogues, and they were 
honored prophets in Israel. As late as the time of Christ we find 
one of the latter standing in the Temple, speaking to “All them 
that were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem’ (Luke 11:38). 
Is it reasonable to suppose that these women served without train- 
ing? Rabbinical literature declared that Huldah “Taught in the 
School at Jerusalem.” Were the doors that swung open to her 
as a teacher barred against her as a scholar? 

We conclude our study of the status of woman in the church 
during the Mosaic dispensation by reference to the following Old 
Testament passages: 

Psalm Ixvii:11, “The Lord gave the word: great the company 
of those that published” (Authorized Version). King James’ 
translators have entirely covered up the gender of these heralds 
of God’s Word. The Revised Version reads: “The Lord giveth 
the word: The women (njnwyn) that publish the tidings are a 
great host.” As the Hebrew shows, these heralds are women and 
they are proclaiming God’s Word. Dr. Adam Clark translates 
the passage thus: “The Lord gave the word: Of the female 
preachers there was a great host.’ He says: “Such is the literal 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 137 


translation of this passage; the reader may make of it what he 
pleases.” 

Psalm Ixviii:11, must be taken as history or as prophecy. If 
it is history, there were many women prophets during the first 
Jewish commonwealth. If it is prophecy, it points to a reversal 
of the present policy of the Christian church toward the ordination 
of women. 

Isaiah xl:9, 10, “O thou (nwa) that telleth good tidings to 
Zion, get thee up into the high mountains: O thou (Mw) that 
telleth good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength; 
lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your 
God!” Here again we have a woman herald—according to Dr. 
Clark, a woman preacher, proclaiming “good tidings” (Gospel), 
and God gives her the message: “Say unto the cities of Judah, 
Behold your God!” 

While we do not dispute the primary reference of this passage, 
we nevertheless believe that it contains a prophecy—especially as 
it follows so closely the prophecy concerning John the Baptist 
(Isa. x1:3-5), which no one disputes. 

Joel 11:28, 29, “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will 
pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your 
daughters shall prophesy ...and also upon the servants and 
upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out My Spirit.” No 
presbytery, synod, nor general assembly ; no annual nor general con- 
ference; no ecclesiastical convocation nor convention, can forever 
keep woman out of the pulpit. She “shall prophesy,” for “the 
mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” 


Vil 
WOMAN DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION: 


~ 


IN THE STATE 


ROM the Exodus, 1491 B.c. to the establishment of 
K the monarchy, 1095 B.c., the Hebrew from of govern- 
ment was theocratic. The state was under the immediate 
direction of Jehovah. During the wilderness journey the execu- 
tion of His will was entrusted to a triumviri—Moses, Aaron and 
Miriam. In Micah vi:4, we read: “I brought thee up out of the 
land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of bondage, 
and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron and Miriam.” Here at the 
beginning of the Hebrew commonwealth, we find a woman oc- 
cupying a position of power in the State—associated, by Divine 
appointment, with her brothers in civil and ecclesiastical authority. 
At creation Eve stood by the side of Adam when Jehovah God 
said unto them, ““Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and 
over the fowls of the air, and over every living thing that moveth 
upon the earth,” so now, at “the birth of a nation,” “diverse from 
all of them,’”’—a theocracy—God summons Miriam to stand side 
by side with her brothers in the highest council of state. 

We may assume that in this triumvirate Miriam held subordinate 
relation; that the administration de facto devolved on Moses and 
Aaron; we may surmise that her share in government was cir- 
cumscribed to matters concerning women and children. We are 
reminded that on the occasion of rejoicing after the passage of 
the Red Sea and the destruction of Pharaoh’s army, Miriam led 
the women in the Song of Triumph, while Moses led the men. 
Would this not indicate that her sphere of activity was confined to 
her own sex and to children? We answer that the same line of 
argument, if adhered to, would restrict Moses to affairs concern- 
ing men, for in that celebration he was leader of the male chorus. 

There is nothing in the record to indicate that Miriam’s duties 

138 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 139 


and responsibilities as a member of the triumvirate in any wise 
differed from that of her brothers. That her activities were not 
confined to the interests of one sex is evident from the words of 
- Jehovah, Micah vi:3, 4: “O My people’—He is speaking, not to 
a sex, but to the entire nation—“O My people, what have I done 
unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against Me. 
For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed 
thee out of the house of bondage; and I sent before thee Moses, 
Aaron and Miriam.” Miriam was a national—not a sex—leader, 
and that by Divine election. 

Furthermore she was not a nonentity in that council of state. 
The fact that she was chosen to such exalted position by Jehovah 
Himself is all the proof we need. God does not call figure- 
heads to posts of great responsibility; He does not choose women 
to be leaders out of compliment to the sex. Miriam was qualified, 
otherwise God would not have made her “a chosen vessel.” 

This woman received Divine communication, not only in the 
sense of prophetic inspiration, but in revelation like unto that 
vouchsafed to the High Priest. In connection with the event 
recorded in Numbers xii, she, in unison with Aaron, asks: “Hath 
Jehovah indeed spoken only with Moses? Hath He not spoken 
also with us?” 

When the prophetess was smitten with leprosy and “shut up 
without the camp seven days,” “the people journeyed not till 
Miriam was brought in again.” She died at advanced age, near 
the close of the wilderness journey, and was buried at Kadesh, 
not far from the borders of Palestine. 

The triumvirate terminated with the death of Moses, Aaron and 
Miriam, and Joshua, son of Nun, became the leader of the chil- 
dren of Israel. It is foreign to our purpose to discuss the con- 
quest of Palestine and its apportionment to the twelve tribes, so 
we pass at once to the period of the Judges. Judges 11:16 we 
read: “And Jehovah raised up judges, who saved them out of the 
hand of those that despoiled them.” Acts xiii:19, 20: “And when 
He had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, He gave 
them their land for an inheritance, for about four hundred and 


140 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


fifty years: and after these things He gave them judges until 
Samuel the prophet.” 

Among the judges whom “Jehovah raised up” to save them 
“out of the hand of those that despoiled them,’ was Deborah the 
prophetess. This woman was called to leadership in troublous 
times; the children of Israel had gone a whoring after strange 
gods; they, “again did that which was evil in the sight of Je- 
hovah,” and He “sold them into the hands of Jabin, king of 
Canaan” and for twenty years, “He mightily oppressed” them: 


“The highways were unoccupied, 
And the travellers walked through byways, 
The rulers ceased in Israel, they ceased.” 


Then Deborah arose—raised up of Jehovah to save His people 
“out of the hand of those that despoiled them.” “She dwelt under 
the palm-tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill 
country of Ephraim; and the children of Israel came up to her 
for judgment.” 

But Deborah felt herself called to a larger task than the set- 
tling of controversies between individuals; she believed Jehovah 
had raised her up to deliver the children of Israel “out of the 
hand of those that despoiled them,” so “she sent and called Barak, 
the son of Abinoam out of Kadesh-Naphtali, and said unto him, 
Hath not Jehovah, the God of Israel, commanded, saying, Go 
and draw unto Mount Tabor and take with thee ten thousand men 
of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun? And 
I will draw unto thee, to the river Kishon, Sisera, the captain of 
Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his multitude; and I will 
deliver him into thy hand.” 

But Barak had no relish for such perilous undertaking. He 
knew he must lead an unequipped army: “Was there a shield or ° 
spear seen among forty thousand in Israel?” He knew he would 
not have the undivided support of the nation itself; that Reuben 
would sit “among the sheepfolds, to hear the pipings for the 
flocks”; that Gilead would abide beyond the Jordan; and Dan 
“remain in ships”; that Asher would sit “still at the haven of the 
sea’; that not an inhabitant of Meroz would come “to the help 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 141 


of Jehovah against the mighty.” He knew it all, and like a 
prudent general, he drew back from such hazardous enterprise. 
Not so with Deborah; she had unwavering faith in Jehovah. At 
last to her promptings Barak answered: “If thou wilt go with me, 
then I will go; but if thou wilt not go with me, I will not go.” 
“And she said, I will surely go with thee.” “And Deborah arose, 
and went with Barak to Kadesh.” Deborah had faith in God; 
Barak had faith in God and Deborah. Every Bible student is 
familiar with the issue of the battle that followed: “God subdued 
on that day Jabin, king of Canaan before the children of Israel, 
and the hand of the children of Israel prevailed more and more 
against Jabin, the king of Canaan until they had destroyed Jabin, 
king of Canaan.” 

Some have doubted that Deborah herself went into the battle. 
This is in strict accord with the habit of a certain class of redac- 
tors. The Scripture narrative throughout represents this woman 
judge as prime mover in the enterprise. She summoned Barak 
before her in “the hill country of Ephraim”; she acquainted him 
with the Divine command; she encouraged him to revolt against 
Jabin; she said, “I will surely go with thee,’ she accompanied him 
to Kadish; she was present on the day of battle; she stood by the 
side of Barak on the height of Tabor; she watched the approach of 
the Canaanitish army; at the opportune moment, when Sisera’s 
chariots were sinking in the bog, and his horses plunging in the 
mire, it was her voice that sounded the command to charge—“Up 
for this is the day in which Jehovah hath delivered Sisera into 
thy hand; is not Jehovah gone out before thee? So Barak went 
down from Mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him.” 

Judges v:15, we read, “The princes of Issachar were with 
Deborah’”—but where? On the summit of the mountain, apart 
from danger, or down on that plain with valiant men jeopardizing 
“their lives unto death”? We have the answer to this question in 
the Song of Triumph, verse 15: 


“And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah, 
As was Issachar, so was Barak; 
Into the valley they rushed forth at his feet.” 


142 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


Deborah, prophetess, judge and warrior, lived in a heroic age, 
when even women at times “jeopardized their lives even unto the 
death,” “upon the high places of the field.” 

The victory achieved on the occasion of this battle was celebrated 
with national rejoicing. The Song of Triumph recorded in’ the 
fifth chapter of Judges is commemorative of the event. Of this 
ode, Milman says: “Lyric poetry has nothing in any language 
which can surpass the boldness and animation of this striking pro- . 
duction.” Dr. William Smith, in his “Old Testament History,” 
Pp. 333, says: “One of the most picturesque remains of Hebrew 
poetry, and deserves to rank with the Song of Moses and Miriam.” 
But a question arises—who was its author? Hebrew writers 
down through the centuries have with one accord ascribed it to 
Deborah. To the average reader the seventh verse would settle 
the question: 


“The rulers ceased in Israel, they ceased, 
Until that I, Deborah arose, 
That I arose a mother in Israel.” 


But modern destructive criticism has something to say; it points 
out that in verses twelve and fifteen, the prophetess’ name appears 
in the third person, and this is sufficient to generate doubt. The 
writer of this volume deems this mere quibble in face of the fact 
that the author of almost every book of the Old Testament refers 
to himself at times after this manner. If authorship of this ode 
is denied to Deborah on the ground that her name appears twice 
in the third person, then in all fairness, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, 
Ezra, Nehemiah, Job, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Hosea, 
Jonah, Habakkuk, Haggai and Zechariah, must resign the quill 
and join the procession of “down-and-outs.” We must make a 
new roster, for all these accredited authors write themselves in the 
third person—some uniformly so, others vary from first to third. 
The fact that Deborah’s name appears in the third person in the 
twelfth and fifteenth verses of this Song of Triumph is not conse- 
quential enough to withstand the testimony of verse seven, nor to 
outweigh the uniform opinion of Hebrew scholars through a period 
of over three thousand years. 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 143 


We note in this connection that three of the most inspiring songs 
of the Bible are the utterances of women—the Song of Deborah, 
the Song of Hannah, and the Song of Mary—the “Magnificat.” 
In each particular case the authorship has been questioned—The 
Song of Deborah, as has just been noted, on the quibble that her 
name appears twice in the third person; The Song of Hannah and 
the “Magnificat” without assigned reason, but in both cases it 
has been suggested that perhaps they were quotations from “some 
unknown writer,’—the inference of course being that these “un- 
known writers” were men. 

Some redactors are apparently averse to allowing woman any 
share in the making of the Sacred canon. We have further ex- 
ample in the assignment of the authorship of the various books 
of the Bible. A rule that prevails in most cases is that when a 
book bears the name of an individual, unless there is strong reason 
for the contrary, the authorship is adjudged to that individual. 
Now and then some one offers challenge, but in the main, the 
rule prevails. In the assignment of authorship, Joshua, Samuel, 
Ezra, Nehemiah, Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and each 
of the minor prophets, are allowed priority of claim to the books 
that bear their name. But “There are exceptions to all rules.” 
Two books of the Old Testament Canon are inscribed with the 
name of women—Ruth and Esther. This causes dilemma. The 
men who sit in judgment in such matters have predilections, and 
at once cast about for some one else on whom to bestow the honor. 
The Book of Ruth is adjudged to Samuel or to “some unknown 
author”; The Book of Esther, we are gravely told, was probably 
written by Mordecai, or by “some unknown writer.” 

In the case of Ruth, we may allow for doubt, for she was a 
Moabitess. Not so in the case of Esther; she was a Hebrew, and 
Jewish law and custom under the first commonwealth required the 
education of daughters as well as sons. Furthermore, there are 
recorded in the Book, facts that were personal. These would have 
been inaccessible to Mordecai unless communicated by Esther. 
But the queen had scribes at her command, and to them she could 
impart information as readily as to Mordecai, and they could 
write at her dictation. It is generally conceded that most of the 


144 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


Pauline epistles were written by an amanuensis, but this did not 
deprive the Apostle of the authorship. 

The last six chapters of the Book of Esther relate to events that 
occurred several years subsequent to the marriage of the queen. 
She was no longer an inexperienced maiden. Chapter 1x, verse 
29, we read: “Then Esther the queen, the daughter of Abihail, 
and Mordecai the Jew, wrote with all authority to confirm this 
second letter of Purim,” and in verse 32, “And the commandment 
of Esther confirmed these matters of Purim.” Is it insupposable 
that a woman who took hand in affairs of State and wrote “with all 
authority” was able to record events intimately associated with 
her own life and vital to the welfare of her people? 

The composer of this chapter in Jewish history cannot be de- 
termined dogmatically, but so far as the writer of this volume is 
concerned, Esther’s claim to authorship of the book that bears 
her name would be paramount, were it not for one fact—she was 
a woman. 

Deborah’s judgeship apparently extended through a period of 
forty years. Like Samuel she combined in her person the offices 
of judge and prophet. She stood in front rank among the judges; 
she delivered her people “out of the hand of those that despoiled 
them”; “The children of Israel came up to her for judgment,” 
“And the land had rest for forty years.” 


An association, venerated by the Hebrews throughout their 
entire history, was that of the elders. This order was in ex- 
istence prior to the Exodus. 

At the expiration of Moses’ sojourn among the Midianites, he 
returned to Egypt, and in obedience to the Divine command gath- 
ered “the elders of Israel together” (Ex. iii:16, iv:29). They were 
in evidence on almost every important occasion in the subsequent 
history of the Israelites. They accompanied Moses and Aaron 
when they appeared before Pharaoh; they were assembled when 
Moses smote the rock in Horeb; they were guests with Moses’ 
father-in-law at the feast; they escorted Moses when he ascended 
Mount Sinai; seventy from among the elders were ordained to bear 
with Moses “the burden of the people”; the elders went in proces- 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 145 


sion with Moses to meet Dathan and Abiram: prior to his death, 
Moses entrusted the Law to the priests and elders; when Samuel 
rebuked Saul for disobedience in the matter of the Amalekites, 
Saul’s entreaty was, “Yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the 
elders of my people.” David sent of the spoils he had taken to the 
elders of Judah: when he, and later Solomon would remove the ark 
of the covenant, they conferred with the elders. So on, down 
through the history of the Jewish people. The elders were a 
revered body—representative, judicial, and on all occasions, es- 
teemed counsellors. We quote from the “Jewish Encyclopedia”: 


“In primitive times, age was a necessary condition of authority, 
not only among the ancient Jews, but also among other nations 
of antiquity. The elders of the nation or of the clan constituted 
the official class... . What there was of permanent official au- 
thority lay in the hands of the elders, and heads of the houses; in 
times of war, they commanded each his own household, and in 
peace they dispensed justice, each within his own circle. They 
were the defenders of the interests of their constituency and were 
especially powerful in local and municipal affairs (Deut. xix :12, 
MRT QIU RT GH SCR 273) | OS... XMAS Ut y)-2 ) 0) Logethen “with 
priests, they sometimes participated in certain sacrificial rites (Lev. 
iv:15,1ix:1). In national affairs they held a very important posi- 
tion. It was at the request of the elders that Samuel consented 
to a monarchical form of government in Israel (I Sam. viii:4). It 
was through their intervention that Abner succeeded in appointing 
David king over Israel (II Sam. ii1:17). ... It is not known 
whether all the officers of the commonwealth were chosen from 
the body of elders but the Scripture record shows that many were 
(cf. Ex. xvili:25 and Num. xi:16). The institution of elders 
flourished during the period of the Babylonian exile and continued 
in Palestine during the Persian and Greek periods.” 


This influential order made and unmade rulers. It was the 
elders who placed the government in the hands of Jephthah (Jud. 
xi). It was the elders who turned the kingdom from Ishbosheth 
to David (II Sam. in:17). It was fear of this powerful body 
that prompted Saul’s appeal to Samuel, “Honour me now I pray 
thee, before the elders of my people.” 


146 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


At the beginning of the Christian era “the traditions of the 
elders” ranked on an equality with the Law given on Mount 
Sinai, and at times superseded it. The Pharisees said to Jesus: 
“Why do Thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?” 
He answered, “Ye have made void the word of God, because of 
your tradition.” 

Now were women members of this venerated order? We have 
no data on which to base an affirmative answer; we can only con- 
jecture. In the Old Testament the word “elder” in the noun 
form—referring to a functionary—occurs only in the plural. Not 
the individual, but a group or class is mentioned. Under such 
circumstances, it is impossible to determine to a certainty that 
women were included. But there are facts that have a bearing 
on the question. Women were eligible to the highest offices 
of State—Miriam was a Triumvir; Deborah was national judge 
and ruler. Under such circumstances, is it reasonable to infer 
that women were denied a seat among the elders? 

There are strong probabilities that Deborah was an elder. We 
deem such inference warrantable for the following reasons: (1) 
She was “a mother in Israel’ (Jud. v:7). Age was a prerequisite 
to eldership. (2) She was a judge (Jud. iv:4) and “elders” were 
a judicial order. (3) She was a ruler and it was customary to 
choose officers of State from this body (Ex. xviii:25, Num. xi:16). 

Elsewhere we find a woman apparently functioning as an elder. 
Joab led his army to the city of Abel with intent to destroy it. 
“All the people that were with Joab battered the wall to throw 
it down. There cried a wise woman out of the city, Hear, hear; 
say, I pray you, unto Joab, Come near hither, that I may speak 
with thee. And he came near unto her; and the woman said, Art 
thou Joab? And he answered, I am. Then she said unto him, 
Hear the words of thy handmaid. And he answered, I do hear. 
Then she spake saying, . . . J am of them that are peaceable and 
faithful in Israel; why wilt thou swallow up the inheritance of 
Jehovah? And Joab answered and said, Far be it, far be it from 
me, that I should swallow up or destroy. The matter is not so; 
but a man of the hill-country of Ephraim, Sheba, the son of 
Bichri by name, hath lifted up his hand against the king, even 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 147 


against David: deliver him only, and I will depart from the city. 
And the woman said unto Joab, Behold, his head shall be thrown 
to thee over the wall. Then the woman went unto all the people 
in her wisdom. And they cut off the head of Sheba, the son of 
Bichri, and threw it out to Joab. And he blew the trumpet, and 
they were dispersed from the city, every man to his tent. And 
Joab returned to Jerusalem unto the king” (II Sam. xx:15-22). 

This woman discharged duties which under ordinary circum- 
stances pertained to elders. Furthermore she had three of the 
qualifications for eldership: (1) Wisdom. She was “a wise 
woman.” “She went unto all the people in her wisdom” (vs. 
16, 22).\ (2) Age. \. She? was: a smother in, Israel’ (v. 19). 
(3) She had the confidence and esteem of her fellow citizens. 

The appearance of this woman at this particular crisis was 
evidently not a sporadic effort on her part. There is no query in 
her mind as to the result of her appeal to the citizens of Abel. 
She speaks with authority and says—it shall be done. ' This evi- 
dences leadership. “And the woman said unto Joab, Behold his 
head shall be thrown to thee over the wall” (v. 21). She stands 
forth as spokesman for her city. Only the fealty of the past 
would embolden her to speak with such confidence for the future. 
She was not a novice; she was a tried counselor; an approved 
leader, and she relied on the fidelity of her people. 

At the period of this narrative every consequential city in Israel 
had its group of elders. It was so with Abel, where this woman 
dwelt. In verse 18 we read: “They were wont to speak in old 
time, saying, They shall surely ask counsel at Abel; and so they 
ended the matter.”’ Elders were more than all others, counselors; 
kings and princes consulted them, e.g., David, Solomon, Ahab, 
Hezekiah, et al. In the time of Christ, chief priests and scribes 
“took counsel with the elders.” They were esteemed as oracles; 
they were the embodiment of wisdom. The woman of this nar- 
rative dwelt at Abel, the elders of which city were so reputed that 
the inhabitants of the country round about were wont to say: “ask 
counsel at Abel; and so they ended the matter.” If this ‘“‘wise 
woman,” this “mother in Israel,’ was not an elder, she was be- 


148 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


yond peradventure, a counselor of elders, and her counsel “ended 
the matter.” 

There are elsewhere in Scripture mention of “wise women.” 
Joab sent to Tekoa “and fetched thence a wise woman,” to hold 
audience with King David and to prevail on him to recall Absalom 
(II Sam. xiv). Jeremiah ix:17, we read: “Call for the mourning 
women, that they may come; and for the wise women that they 
may come.”’ King James’ translators render, “Cunning women’ ; 
the Revised Version reads: “Skillful women.” The more exact 
translationis, “Wise women” (nian) Whether these women were 
elders it is impossible to determine, but one thing is certain, they 
were of acknowledged worth in their tribes or gens. 


We come now to the princes—“‘heads of fathers’ houses.” Dur- 
ing the Theocracy, and also during the period of the judges, there 
were no princes of royal blood—the name was applied to “heads 
of fathers’ houses.” 

First Chronicles, from the second to tenth chapters inclusive, 
we have a genealogical record of the posterity of Jacob. For some 
unassigned reason the tribes of Zebulun and Dan are omitted. 
In this roster are the names of approximately eleven hundred 
“sons” (O35). This extends over a period of almost a thousand 
years—from the descent into Egypt 1706 B.c. to the Babylonian 
captivity 721 B.c. It is at once apparent that this is not a complete 
registration of male descendants of Jacob. During that millennium 
a vastly greater number of sons were born. The census of I 
Chronicles ii is evidently selective. In the first chapter of Num- 
bers we read that Moses was commanded to take “the sum of all 
the congregation of the children of Israel, by their families, by 
their fathers’ houses, according to the number of names.” In that 
case it was a military enrollment. “Every male, by their polls, 
from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth 
to war in Israel.” Not so in I Chronicles ii-x. Here we have a 
genealogical table of “princes”—‘heads of fathers’ houses.” In- 
terspersed through the record are these annotations: “These men- 
tioned by name were princes in their families” (iv:38). ‘These 
were the heads of their fathers’ houses” (v:24). “They were 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 149 


reckoned by genealogy, after their generations, heads of their 
fathers’ houses” (vii:9). “These were his sons (O°)3) heads 
of fathers’ houses” (vili:10). “These were heads of fathers’ 
houses, throughout their generations, chief men: these dwelt in 
Jerusalem” (viti:28). “All these men were heads of fathers’ 
houses” (ix :9), et al. 

But here a difficulty confronts us. No less than twelve daugh- 
ters’ names appear in this register: Abigail, Zeruiah (ii:16) ; 
Ahlai (11:31, 34); Achsah (ii:49); Tamar (11:9); Shelomith 
(111:19) ; Hazzelelponi (iv:3) ; Miriam (vi:3) ; Maacah (vii:15) ; 
Hammolecheth (vii:18); Sheerah (vii:24), and Serah (vii:31). 
There can be no mistake, for in each case the sex is indicated in 
the context. To this list we are warranted in adding the names of 
two others, that of Miriam (iv:17) (this is other than Miriam 
the prophetess) ; also Athaliah the “son” of Jeroham (viii:26). 
These two names appear repeatedly in Scripture, and always 
feminine—never masculine, so we are justified in adding them to 
this category of daughters, making a total of fourteen. In all 
probability there are others, but these cannot be questioned by 
any unprejudiced mind. 

It is difficult at times to differentiate between masculine and 
feminine names in the Old Testament. Some are common to both 
sexes, ¢.g., one of the daughters of Zelophehad was named Noah 
(Num, xxvi:33). Other cases might be cited. In innumerable 
instances masculine names have the feminine termination. In 
this study we are not taking chances, so from this genealogical 
table we have sorted out names which are unquestionably feminine 
and to these have added two which with a reasonable degree of 
certainty may be listed as such. 

But why are these daughters catalogued in such connection? 
Was it an error on the part of some scribe? How came it to pass 
that they were enrolled while the multitude was overlooked? 
Surely in a period of almost a thousand years millions of daughters 
were born. The birthrate among Jews averages 100 girls to I12 
boys, but the genealogical table of I Chronicles ii-x shows about 
eleven hundred males to less than a score of females. Not for a 
moment can we harbor the thought that this represents the birth 


150 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


rate 'in those Ten tribes of Israel. King David had a number of 
daughters (I Chron. xiv:3), but only Tamar’s name is recorded 
here. I Chronicles ii:31, we read: “The sons of Sheshan: Ahlai,” 
and in verse 34, “Now Sheshan had no sons, but daughters.” 
Of these several daughters, Ahlai alone is enrolled. We note 
here, in confirmation of what has been said elsewhere, that in 
verse 31 Sheshan’s daughtersare called “sons” (O°}2). The same 
is true of Athaliah, viii:26. In vi:3, “Miriam the prophetess” is 
listed as one of the “sons” (0°33) of Amram; only in this case 
the translators render “children.” 

Why were these fourteen daughters registered in this genea- 
logical table—I Chronicles ii-x? Why were they distinguished 
above their sisters? There can be but one answer. They, like 
their brothers, were “princes’—‘“heads of fathers’ houses.” In 
no other way can we account for their enrollment. 

Of some of these women we have mention elsewhere in Holy 
Scripture. Miriam (vi:3) was one of the God-appointed leaders 
of the children of Israel (Micah vi:4). Achsah (11:49) was a 
daughter of Caleb and wife of Othniel, the first judge after the 
settlement of Palestine (Jud. 1:12, 13; iii:9). Tamar (11:9) was 
one of the daughters of King David (II Sam. xiii). Zeruiah and 
Abigail (11:16) were sisters of David. The former was the 
mother of three famous sons—Abishai, Joab, and Asahel. Joab 
was generalissimo of the army during the long reign of his royal 
uncle and on more than one occasion thwarted his will. David’s 
lament was, “I am this day weak, though anointed king; and 
these men, the sons of Zeruiah are too hard for me.” 

Wherever the pedigree of Joab, Abishai and Asahel is referred 
to they are called “the sons of Zeruiah,” indicating that their line- 
age was reckoned in the mother’s line. The name of their father 
is unknown. Abigail, the other sister of King David, whose 
name appears in this genealogical table, was the mother of Amasa, 
commander-in-chief of Absalom’s army on the occasion of his 
attempt to seize the kingdom. Sheerah (vii:24) was a woman of 
great personal achievement, “who built Beth-horon the nether 
and the upper and Uzzen-Sheerah.” The first two named cities, 
Beth-horon the nether, and Beth-horon the upper, were strategic. 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 151 


King Solomon fortified them, “with walls, gates and bars” (II 
Chron. viii:5). The third city, Uzzen-Sheerah, was named for 
its founder. 

Fourteen women—probably others—are “mentioned by name” 
in the genealogical record of I Chronicles ii-x, and we read, “These 
mentioned by name were princes in their families” (iv:38). 
“They were reckoned by genealogy, after their generations, heads 
of their fathers’ houses” (vili:10). 

The functions of these “princes—heads of their fathers’ houses,” 
were judicial, magisterial, military, political, and in the case of 
Levites—religious. At times they are called, “rulers,” “chief 
men,” “able men,” “judges,” “seers,” “mighty men of valor,” 
“famous men,” “men that had understanding of the times to know 
what Israel ought to do.” 

Milman, in his “History of the Jews,” characterizes the “heads 
of families,” as the Hebrew “aristocracy.” He says: 


5) 


“Joshua twice assembled a sort of Diet, or Parliament, consist- 
ing of elders, heads of families, judges and officers, who seem to 
have represented all Israel.” “No doubt the national assembly 
consisted of delegates from the provincial ones. . . . The chieftain 
was the hereditary head of the whole tribe; the aristocracy the 
heads of the different families; these with the Judges, and perhaps 
the shoterim, the scribes or genealogists, officers of great impor- 
tance in each tribe, constituted the provincial assembly” (p. 211). 


According to the “Jewish Encyclopedia,” “What there was of 
permanent official authority, lay in the hands of the elders and 
‘heads of fathers’ houses.’ ” 

It is evident that the genealogical table of I Chronicles ii-x is in- 
complete. The tribes of Dan and Zebulon are omitted. The tribe 
of Manasseh was one of the largest of Israel but only twenty- 
two “heads of fathers’ houses” are mentioned, while some of the 
smaller tribes are accredited with several times that number, e.¢., 
I Chronicles xii :32, “And of the children of Issachar, men that had 
understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do, 
the heads of these were 200; and all their brethren were at their 
commandment.” 


152 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


“Zelophehad the son of Hepher” belonged to the tribe of Manas- 
seh. He had no sons, but daughters. Their names are recorded: 
“Mahlah, and Noah, Haglah, Milcah, and Tirzah” (Num. xxvi:33, 
XXVliiI, xxxvi:11; Joshua xvii:3). These five daughters came 
“before Moses and before Eleazar the priest, and before the 
princes and all the congregation, at the door of the tent of meet- 
ing,” and presented their claim. They said: “Why should the 
name of our father be taken away from among his family, because 
he had no son? Give unto us a possession among the brethren of 
our father’ (Num. xxvii:4). ‘And Moses brought their cause 
before Jehovah, And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, The 
daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them 
a possession of an inheritance among their father’s brethren: and 
thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them” 
(Num. xxvii:5-7). After the conquest of Palestine, when the 
land was divided by lot, these daughters appeared before Eleazar 
the priest, before Joshua the son of Nun, and before the princes 
and renewed their claim, saying, “Jehovah commanded Moses to 
give us an inheritance among our brethren,’ and Joshua did so, 
“according to the commandment of Jehovah he gave them an in- 
heritance among the brethren of their father” (Jos. xvili:3, 4). 
According to the “Jewish Encyclopedia,’ Zelophehad was the 
eldest son of his father, and as such received a double portion of 
his property—this went to Zelophehad’s daughters. 

A question presents itself here: Did the recognition of these 
daughters’ claim carry with it other than property rights? Did 
one of these aspirants become the head of her father’s house? 
The petitioners urge this consideration—“Why should the name 
of our father be taken away from among his family because he 
had no son?’ Not only were property rights at stake, but the 
family name was involved. The Hebrews preserved with jealous 
care their patronymics. Because of this the Levirate marriage 
was imposed—“that his name be not blotted out of Israel.” If 
the brother of the deceased defaulted and said, “I like not to 
take her,” the widow made complaint before the elders, saying, 
“My husband’s brother refused to raise up unto his brother a name 
in Israel,” and she loosed the shoe of the delinquent from off his 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 153 


foot and spat in his face, saying in reproach, “So shall it be done 
unto the man that doth not build up his brother’s house,” and 
thenceforth the recalcitrant’s name was called, “the house of 
him that hath his shoe loosed.” He had dishonored the deceased 
and allowed his brother’s name to be “blotted out in Israel.” 
The daughters of Zelophehad not only laid claim to their father’s 
estate, but they sought means to perpetuate the family name. 
This could be effected by reckoning the lineage in the female line 
as in the case of Barzillai’s daughters (Ezra 11:61; Neh. vii:63) 
and also Zeruiah, the sister of King David (I Chron. ii:16, 17). 
Whether the eldest of Zelophehad’s daughters—Mahlah—was 
elevated to the headship of her father’s house is an indeterminable 
question. However, certain facts must be taken into consideration: 
(1) The daughters of Zelophehad were evidently persons of note. 
Their names are catalogued four times in Sacred Writ. Each 
time Mahlah takes precedence of her sisters. Aside from the listed 
names there is mention of these daughters elsewhere (Josh. 
xvii:6; Num. xxxvi; I Chron. vii:15). Hershon—A Talmudic 
Miscellany, p. 282—declares that these daughters of Zelophehad 
were highly esteemed as “sages” and “expounders.” (2) The 
daughters of Zelophehad were rich in land estate, otherwise “the 
heads of the fathers’ houses of the family of the children of Gilead 
would not have appeared before Moses and before the princes, the 
heads of the fathers’ houses of the children of Israel’ with urgent 
appeal that these women he prohibited marriage outside their own 
tribe, lest they alienate their inheritance. If the possessions of these 
daughters had been inconsequential, the princes of Gilead had not 
manifested such concern. Dr. Peritz says: “The right of in- 
heritance belonged to the active members of the tribe.” (3) Zel- 
ophehad their father left no male issue to assume headship of the 
family. (4) As has been shown elsewhere, women were eligible 
to this position. (5) I Chronicles vii:14-19 is a genealogical record 
of the descendants of Machir, the son of Manasseh and father of 
Gilead, the father of Hepher, the father of Zelophehad, the father 
of Mahlah. The roster of I Chronicles vii:14-19 is incomplete, 
but the omissions can be supplied in part, by reference to other 
Scripture—e.g., Numbers xxvii:1, Joshua xvii:3, e¢ al. 


154 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


The genealogical tables of the Hebrews are often difficult—at 
times impossible—of decipherment, owing to frequent omissions 
and to the latitude allowed in the use of terms of kinship; e. g., the 
word “brother (M8) does not necessarily signify one born of the 
same parent or parents. It was frequently used in reference to “a 
relative or kinsman in any degree of blood.’”’ Lot is called Abram’s 
“brother” (ms Gen. xiv:16). He was in fact his nephew (Gen. 
xii:5, xiv:12). Laban says to Jacob—“Thou art my brother,” 
and Jacob assures Rachel that he is “Her father’s brother” (Gen. 
Xiv:12, 16). Jacob was Laban’s nephew and later he became his 
son-in-law. There was the same free use of the term “sister,” 
(minx). Its secondary meaning was “a relative,” “a kinswoman,” 
“a countrywoman,” ‘‘a member of the same tribe.” Rebekah is 
called her mother’s “sister” (Gen. xxiv:59, 60). Attention has 
been called to the liberal use of the word “son” (j3) at times 
denoting offspring of either sex and frequently applied to grand- 
children, great-grandchildren and even to descendants of remote 
degree. Again matters in these genealogical tables are complicated 
by changing now and then from the male to the female line. All 
these things may have been intelligible to the ancient Hebrew, but 
they are disconcerting to the student of today. 

In the genealogical roster of I Chronicles vii:14-19 appears the 
name Mahlah. Was this the daughter of Zelophehad? The 
chronicler says, “And his sister Hammolecheth bear Ishhod and 
Abiezer and Mahlah.” Whose sister? Presumably Gilead’s, 
although the record is so involved that this is by no means cer- 
tain. Was Hammolecheth the wife of Zelophehad? If so this 
would account for her being called the “sister” or “kinswoman” of 
Gilead, who was the grandfather of Zelophehad. But how about 
the two sons of Hammolecheth—Ishhod and Abiezer? There is 
repeated mention of the fact that Zelophehad, at the time of his 
death, “had no sons, but daughters.” This can be disposed of by 
assuming that these sons deceased before their father. This 
would be “no new thing under the sun.” It was doubtless of 
frequent occurrence at a period when every able-bodied young man 
in Israel over twenty years of age—aside from the tribe of Levi— 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 155 


was conscripted for military service. It is noticeable that no de- 
scendants of these two sons are named in the roster. 

The author does not stress the foregoing solution. It rests 
solely on the supposition that Hammolecheth was the wife of 
Zelophehad. 

In the genealogical table of I Chronicles vii:14-19 appears the 
name of Mahlah. The individual here referred to belonged to 
the tribe of Manasseh and was a lineal descendant of Machir, the 
father of Gilead, the father of Hepher, the father of Zelophehad. 
Mahlah, the eldest of the five sisters whose names stand out in 
Jewish history belonged to the tribe of Manasseh, and was the 
daughter of Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the 
son of Michir, the son of Manasseh. 

It may be queried—that if Mahlah of I Chronicles vii:18 was 
the daughter of Zelophehad, why is there no mention of her sis- 
ters? Two explanations are plausible. (1) If this is a roster of 
“heads of fathers’ houses,’ Mahlah’s name alone would be en- 
rolled. (2) Omissions were very common in the genealogical 
tables of the Jews. I Chronicles vii:17, there is mention of “the 
sons of Ulam,” but the name of one alone is given. 

Hepher was a son of Gilead, but he is not listed in the record 
before us. Innumerable cases could be cited. Mahlah as a proper 
noun occurs five times in the Old Testament; four times out of 
the five it is indisputably feminine (Num. xxvi:33, XXvii:I, XXXvi: 
11; Jos. xvii:3), and there is not the slightest evidence that it 1s 
otherwise in I Chronicles vii:18. 

It is not irrelevant at this point to note that there were “heads 
of fathers’ houses” prior to the Exodus (Ex. vi:14-25). How 
much of authority vested in their hands at that date is not evident. 
In events leading up to the departure from Egypt, the elders stand 
forth as representatives of the people. During the four hundred 
years of “sojourn in a strange land,” “the children of Israel were 
fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed ex- 
ceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.” Jacob went 
down into Egypt with seventy souls. Moses led forth 2,500,000 
people into the wilderness. They were not a disorganized horde. 
There were tribes and elders and heads of father’s houses. Four- 


156 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


teen months after the Exodus we find Moses, Aaron and twelve 
“princes of Israel” (heads of fathers’ houses) enrolling every able- 
bodied man over twenty years of age for military service (Num. 
1:4, 44). 

During the era of oppression, when Rameses II was seeking 
to exterminate Israel, two elect women appear upon the scene— 
Shiphrah and Puah (Ex. i:15-21). At the peril of their lives 
they braved the mandate of a relentless despot. “They feared 
God and did not as the king of Egypt commanded.” And “God 
dealt well” with them, and because they feared Him, “He made 
them houses” (Ex. 1:21). . 

Now what is the import of the record—“He made them houses”’ ? 
Some redactors infer from this that these two women, who had 
hazarded their lives, and performed signal service, were rewarded 
with offspring. Such apparently was the conclusion of the Ameri- 
can Revisers, for they render the passage—“He made to them 
households.” A query is in order. Would this explanation have 
been offered in’seriousness if the subjects had been men instead 
of women? ‘That Shiphrah and Puah should themselves become 
mothers in no way singled them out from the multitude; in no 
way differentiated them from the thousands of their country- 
women; was no outstanding evidence of Divine favor; and was 
certainly not an act of recognition on the part of the Hebrew 
people. The author has no desire to dogmatize, but cannot 
acquiesce in a conclusion that allows two women of distinguished 
service no public recognition. A more reasonable explanation is 
at hand. Would it not be more in accord with the circumstances 
to hold that the heroines of this narrative were elevated to the 
headship of their fathers’ houses? Age was a prerequisite for 
eldership, and it may be that Shiphrah and Puah had not attained 
unto the years of eligibility to this office, but a grateful people 
could express their appreciation by advancing their deliverers to 
the headship of their gens. Because these women feared Jehovah, 
“He made them houses.” 

A brief excursus is permissible here. In the thirty-sixth chapter 
of Genesis, and also in the first chapter of I Chronicles, are found 
genealogies of the Edomites. There is nothing remarkable in this, 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 157 


for the Edomites were descendants of Esau, the son of Isaac and 
twin brother of Jacob. The unusual appears in the sandwiching 
into this record a genealogical roster of an alien people—the 
Horites. The Horites were the aboriginal inhabitants of Mount 
Seir before they were dispossessed by the Edomites. Their name 
signifies “cave-dwellers,” and refers to their mode of living in 
caves, many of which are still extant in the cliffs of Edom. 

But all this does not account for the bringing of their genealogy 
into association with that of the descendants of Esau. 

If the reader will turn to Genesis xxxvi:40-43 and to I Chron- 
icles 1:51-54, he will find a roster of the eleven dukes of Edom— 
among them two women—Oholibamah and Timna. Oholibamah 
was one of the wives of Esau (Gen. xxxvi:2, 14, 18). Timna was 
the pelegesh—secondary wife—of Eliphaz, the eldest son of Esau 
(Gen. xxxvi:1I2). 

Both these women were Horites (Gen. xxxvi:20-25, 30; I 
Chron. 1:38, 39). 

Genesis xxxvi:2, Oholibamah’s descent is given as a Hivite— 
“Oholibamah, the daughter of Anah, the daughter of Zibeon the 
Hivite.” This is an error on the part of some copyist. Zibeon 
was not a Hivite. He was a Horite, as can be attested by a careful 
study of the genealogical table, Genesis xxxvi:20-25. The mistake 
is doubtless due to the marked similarity of the two words in the 
unpointed Hebrew, in which the book of Genesis was originally 
written. The reader may make comparison: mM (Horite) ; 
nn =(Hivite). The only distinguishing feature is a slight pro- 
longation of one letter. 

Timna was also a Horite (Gen. xxxvi:20-30; I Chron. 1:38, 39). 
She bore a daughter called after her name, and who, in I Chron- 
icles 1:35-37, is reckoned as one of the sons (O°)3) of Eliphaz. 

Genesis xxxvi:12, Timna is called the “concubine” (pelegesh) 
of Eliphaz. This word did not, in Old Testament times, have the 
offensive import it has today. After the death of Sarah, Abraham 
married Keturah. She was his lawfully wedded wife, yet in one 
instance (Gen. xxv:6) she is called a concubine. The word sig- 
nified a difference in rank or social standing. It was frequently 


158 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


applied to a woman who, before her marriage, was a slave; and 
this seems to have been its meaning in the case of Timna. 

We have noted that the Horites were the original inhabitants of 
Mount Seir. The Edomites waged an exterminating war against 
them and seized their territory (Deut. 11:12, 22). Now if Timna 
was among the captured, her status would be that of a slave. 
When she wedded Eliphaz, she would be called a pelegesh, or 
secondary wife. 

Before resuming our study of the status of woman during the 
Mosaic dispensation, we note three facts: 

1. The final “h” which translators have added to the name of 
Timna in the Authorized Version (Gen. xxxvi:40) is not in the 
Hebrew. 

2. Genesis xxxvi:2, 14, 18, the genealogy of Oholibamah 
is reckoned, in part, in her mother’s line. The same is true of 
Mehetable, the wife of one of the kings of Edom (Gen. xxxvi:39). 
This was a characteristic of matriarchy. 

3. The mother and grandmother of Esau, the ancestor of the 
Edomites, came from a country where matriarchy had a foothold. 
Edom bordered on Arabia, where “‘most of the jinns were females,” 
and where matriarchy was “originally the universal rule.” Under 
such circumstances one need not be surprised to find women-dukes 
in Edom. 


In 1095 B.c. the Hebrew nation repudiated the theocratic form 
of government and established a monarchy. Concerning this re- 
versal, Jehovah said to Samuel: “They have not rejected thee, but 
they have rejected Me, that I should not be king over them.” This 
change was effected at the instigation of the elders (I Sam. 
Vili :4-6). 

During the monarchy, the question of succession was determined 
by circumstances. Saul, David, and Solomon reigned by Divine 
election. At times popular demand determined the choice of the 
nation’s ruler (I Kings xii:20, II Kings xiv:21, xxi:24, xxiii:30; 
II Chron, xxxiii:25, xxxvi:1). Occasionally a conspirator gained 
a following and fought his way to the throne. The usual course 
was for the sovereign to name his own successor. Bathsheba 


DURING THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION 159 


exacted an oath from King David that her son should sit on the 
throne after him, to the exclusion of his older brothers (I Kings 
1:13, 17). In this case the law of primogeniture was disregarded. 
Rehoboam “appointed” Abijah “to be prince among his brethren, 
for he was minded to make him king.” Abijah was not his first- 
born son, nevertheless it was his father’s will that he should suc- 
ceed to the throne, so in II Chronicles xii:16 it is written: 
“Rehoboam slept with his fathers . . . and Abijah, his son, reigned 
in his stead.” 

There was nothing in the organic law of the Jewish common- 
wealth to exclude women from the highest official position in the 
State, while the example of Miriam, as one of the triumviri, lent 
encouragement to such aspiration. 

On more than one occasion during the monarchy a woman was 
“the power behind the throne” (I Kings 1:13, 17; xxi:7-I1, 25; 
II Kings viii:18; II] Chron. xxi:6, xxii:3), but the name of but 
one reigning queen is recorded in Old Testament Scripture—that 
of Athaliah (II Kings xi). She was the daughter of Ahab and 
Jezebel, and inherited the dominative character of her mother 
rather than the vacillating disposition of her father. 

It was an age when “blood touched blood at the foot of the 
throne,’ and Athaliah, emulating the example of some of the kings 
who reigned before her, “arose and destroyed all the seed royal” 
—only a grandson escaped her hand. She reigned six years with- 
out molestation. In this fact we have evidence that there was not 
popular prejudice against a woman sovereign. Her overthrow 
was accomplished, not by revolt on the part of the people in gen- 
eral, but at the secret instigation of the High Priest, who sought 
to restore the throne to the house of David. 

In the subsequent history of the Jewish nation we find a reigning 
queen whose name does not appear in Sacred Scripture—Alex- 
andra. Her Greek name was Salome. She received the reins of 
government 76 or 75 B.c. We cull the following from the “Jewish 
Encyclopedia” : 


“She was the wife of Aristobulus I, and afterward of Alexander 
Jannaeus. She was the mother of Hyrcanus II, High Priest... . 


160 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


The reign of Alexandra marks a most important epoch in the 
history of Jewish internal government, ... Alexander on his 
death entrusted the government, not to his sons, but to his wife. 
. .. This last political act of the king was his wisest, for the 
queen fully justified the confidence reposed in her. She succeeded 
especially in quieting the vexatious internal dissensions of the 
kingdom that existed at the time of Alexander’s death: and she 
did this peacefully and without detriment to the political relations 
of the Jewish State to the outside world. . . . Alexandra’s sagacity 
and tact succeeded in accomplishing what all the military genius of 
her husband had failed to effect; namely, to make Judza respected 
abroad.” 


Jewish writers in general are extravagant in their laudation of 
this queen. Graetz, in his “History of the Jews,” says: “She came 
like the refreshing dew to an arid and sunburnt soil.” Another 
writer says: “Her authority was so greatly respected by neighbor- 
ing princes that they did not dare make war with Judza,” and still 
another : “The nine years’ reign of Queen Salome was a golden age 
in Jewish history.” 

All this attests that in Mosaic Law and in the Jewish mind 
there was no obstacle to the sovereignty of women. 

This concludes our survey of Old Testament teachings concern- 
ing the status of woman. We turn now to the New Testament. 


VIIl 
THE CALTICTUDEVOR, JESUS 


ALACHI, author of the last book of the Old Testament, 
M prophesied about 416 B.c. A period of more than four 

centuries elapsed ere. the dawn of the Christian era. 
Sacred Writ is silent as to the vicissitudes that befell the Israelites 
during this interval of time, but we learn from profane chronol- 
ogists that they were subject, in turn, to Persian, Greek, Egyptian, 
Syrian, Maccabean, and Roman rule. The seventy years’ captivity , 
in Babylon and subsequent intercourse with heathen nations left © 
impress on the laws and customs of the Hebrews. 

Retrogression is ever a characteristic of false religions. Their 
praiseworthy efforts are spasmodic: they lack power to raise men 
out of the mire and sooner or later the gratification of lust becomes 
the central feature of their worship; and this demands the debase- 
ment of women. In Babylon every member of the sex was required 
to enter the Temple and to prostitute herself in the presence of 
its idol. It was deemed meritorious on the part of parents to devote 
their daughters to a life of sexual commerce for the enrichment of 
the sacerdotal coffers. Annually “Babylon the Great’ opened its 
market for the sale of women. 


Throughout heathendom, religion and law linked arms to effect ‘ 


the degradation of the sex. In Persia, even at her best, woman 
was but “the maid of the man.” In 476 B.c. Athens won the 
hegemony of Greece. Here, under the archontate of Solon, women 
were separated into five classes “for the convenience of all con- 
ditions of men.” 

(1) Wives constituted the first class. These, from earliest child- 
hood, had been kept under strictest surveillance—allowed to “see 
as little as possible, hear as little as possible, and inquire as little 
as possible.” They existed for the sole purpose of propagating 
Greek citizens. They were kept, for the most part, in seclusion 

161 


162 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


and possessed no rights or privileges beyond the will of their lords. 
A wife did not sit at the table with her master. 

(2) The second class—the Hetairai—were the only free women 
in Athens. They were the intellectuals; delivered public addresses, 
taught rhetoric, elocution, and founded schools of philosophy. The 
Hetairai associated freely with men of the same rank or station 
and wielded an immense influence in affairs of state. They dis- 
dained the marriage relation, because of its enforced ignorance, 
seclusion and subjection. Of such was Aspasia, the “friend” of 
Socrates and Pericles. 

One writer says: “Had these gifted women accepted the position 
of wife, ignorance and seclusion would have been their portion, 
while their sexual degradation would have been none the less com- 
plete” (“The Sexes in Science and History,’ p. 345). Demos- 
thenes said, ‘“We have heterae for our pleasure, wives to bear us 
children and to care for our household” (“Women of the Bible,” 
p. 527). Plato represented a state as wholly disorganized, 
where wives were on an equality with their husbands. In his 
“Republic” he provides that “the wives of guardians are to be 
common, and their children also common, and no parent is to know 
his own child, nor any child his parent.”’ Socrates asked one of 
his friends—‘“Is there a human being with whom you talk less 
than with your wife?’ The Hetairai attended lecture rooms, wrote 
books and became the companions of statesmen, poets and philos- 
ophers. They gave themselves as models for images of the gods, 
and the Greeks lifted up their hands to their statues when they 
prayed in their temples (““Women of the Bible,” p. 527). 

(3) The Auletrides, or flute-players. The more fashionable of 
these were imported slaves. They danced in scant attire at ban- 
quets and entertainments, and when enthusiasm was at its height, 
they were auctioned off to the highest bidder. Physical encounters 
for the possession of these women were not an infrequent occur- 
rence in the best society. 

(4) The Concubines. These, too, were purchased slaves. They 
became members of their master’s household, with the full knowl- 
edge of the lawful wife, who had no choice but submission. 

(5) The Dicteriades. Such were not allowed the least freedom 


THE ATTITUDE OF JESUS 163 


of action. They must not appear on the street during the day. 
Solon, on his elevation to the archonship, established a sufficient 
number of houses of prostitution to meet the popular demand, and 
filled them with female slaves. These were procured at the ex- 
pense of the state, and the revenue derived from their services 
enriched the general treasury. This was lauded as “a public- 
spirited measure,” and for its enactment Solon was eulogized as 
“savior of the state.” 

In Rome, at this period, every right of woman was invaded. 
Henry Summer Maine, Regius Professor of Civil Law in the 
University of Cambridge, in writing on this subject, says: “Roman 
law taught the perpetual tutelage of women. . . . A female, though 
relieved from her parent’s authority by his decease, continues sub- 
ject through life to her nearest male relative, or to her father’s 
nominee as her guardian.”’ Ch. Letourneau, General Secretary to 
the Anthropological Society of Paris, in his “Evolution of Mar- 
riage,’ says: “The terrible right of manus was acquired by the 
husband with every form of marriage’ (page 201). “Manus 
conferred on a husband the right to lend his wife to another man.” 
This “right” was at times exercised, even by men of high estate, 
as is testified by Roman histories. Dr. Thompson, in “Women 
of the Bible,” p. 529, says: “Friends exchanged wives, and it 
was not dishonorable to employ the name of friendship for the 
purpose of seducing a friend’s wife.’’ Seneca said: “Whoever has 
no love affair is despised.” Under Roman law a wife was the 
“daughter” of her husband and included in his “Patria Potestas.” 
He had absolute control of her property and person. 

Enforced intercourse with nations such as these in time told on | 
the Jewish mind and wrought a change in the status of woman. — 
The Mosaic code could not be revised to suit this exigency, but 
there was one recourse—the elders. They could “make void the 
word of God” by their traditions. 

During the seventy_years’ sojourn in Babylon, these wiseacres 
among the Hebrews were made alive to “the mistakes of Moses”— 
among the foremost, his failure to impose restraint upon woman. 
On the return from the Captivity, they speedily set to work to 
supply this lack on the part of their great legislator. The result 


164 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


3 


was the Oral law—an aggregation of “the traditions of the elders.’ 
Forthwith strife engendered between the Sadducees and Pharisees ; 
the former disputing the authority of these interpretations, and 
rejecting these de novo rules of conduct; the latter assigning them 
parity with the Mosaic code, and in after centuries claiming for 
them priority. In the Torah it was written, “Ye shall not add 
unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish 
from it” (Deut. iv:2, xii:32), but “the Pharisean doctors found 
it imperative to emphasize their belief in the necessary development 
of the law [Mosaic] to suit the changed conditions.” The struggle 
between the two sects continued until the death of Alexander 
Janneus (78 B.c.), when the Pharisees gained the ascendancy, 
and the Sadducean Sanhedrin was suppressed. 

The development of the Oral law extended over a period of 
five and a half centuries. In this course of time a vast stock of 
laws and usages, not authorized by the Pentateuch, accumulated. 
It was a principle with the Rabbim that these amplifications and 
deductions should not be committed to writing, but must be trans- 
mitted “by word of mouth.” Centuries later they were codified in 
a dozen folio volumes. This compilation of Jewish civil and 
canonical law is called the Talmud. It consists of the Mishna or 
text and the Gemara—commentary. Herein is embodied the Oral 
law—“‘the traditions of the elders,” which in large measure super- 
seded the Mosaic code and “‘made void the word of God.” 

It is not rancorous to affirm that an abatement of the rights and 
privileges accorded woman under the first commonwealth had a 
place in the mind of the authors of these canons. A comparison 
between the Sinaitic and Oral law will show the extent of her 
divestment. 

“No less than five treatises of the Talmud are almost exclusively 
devoted to the regulations concerning husband and wife” (“Jewish 
Law of Marriage and Divorce”). One entire division of the 
Mishna had to do with laws regarding women. H. L. Hastings 
says: “Jewish religion of Bible times by no means sanctioned the 
total subjection of woman subsequently authorized by Moham- 
medism, nor the low views of woman’s place in religion taken by 
Rabbinical Judaism.” 


THE ATTITUDE OF JESUS 165 


Oral law and heathen environment told adversely on the life of 
Hebrew womanhood. In her religious privileges she was circum- 
scribed; in her domestic and social relationships she was confined 
within narrow compass. Her religious overlords could not degrade 
her to the low level of her sex in Babylon, Persia, Greece, or 
Rome, but they crowded her as near the border-line as a perversion 
of the Mosaic law would tolerate. 

At the time of Christ a Rabbi would not recognize a woman— 
even his own wife—in public. “One of the blessings assigned to 
men in the synagogue service runs, ‘Blessed art Thou, O Lord, our 
God, King of the Universe, who hast not made me a woman’ ” 
(“Synagogue Religion and Worship,” p. 297). “In Hebrew law, 
women were not competent witnesses, either in civil or criminal 
cases” (“Jewish Encyclopedia”). The Rabbim held that “together 
with Eve, Satan was created.” ‘Eve was not created simulta- 
neously with Adam, because God foreknew that later she would 
be a source of complaint.’”’ Women went by unfrequented streets 
to the synagogues and seated themselves apart for worship. Herod 
the Great—so vile in his private life, to say nothing of his public 
character, that historians refrain from besmirching their pages 
with a recital—guarded the Temple from profanation by erecting 
a “Women’s Court,” beyond which the sex must not trespass. The 
ruling of Rabbi Hillel permitted a husband to divorce his wife if 
her cooking did not suit him, or if he saw another woman fairer 
than she, and had a desire unto her. If a woman went out of the 
house unveiled, she might be divorced. Many Rabbim locked their 
wives up when they went from home. One class of Pharisees was 
called the “Bleeding Pharisees” because they often struck the head 
against a post as they walked about with their eyes shut lest they 
should see a woman. 

Such was the status of woman in Jewry and throughout heathen- 
dom when Christ entered on His public ministry. 

Now what was the attitude of Jesus in the matter? 

I. He set at nought the Oral law, and publicly excoriated its 
propounders. He said to them: “Why do-ye also transgress the 
commandment of God by your tradition?” (Matt. xv:3). “Ye 


166 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


have made void the word of God because of your traditions” 
(Matt. xv:6). 

In the great denunciation recorded in the twenty-third chapter 
of Matthew’s Gospel, He pours out this vial of wrath upon them: 
“Ye hypocrites, Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, 
This people honoreth Me with their lips; but their heart is far 
from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching doctrines 
the precepts of men” (vs. 5-9). “Woe unto you, ye blind guides.” 
“Ye fools and blind.” ‘Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat 
and swallow a camel” (vs. 16, 17, 24). “Woe unto you scribes 
and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, 
. . . full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness.” “Ye are 
full of hypocrisy and iniquity” (vs. 27, 28). “Ye serpents; Ye 
offspring of vipers; How can ye escape the judgment of hell?” 
(vs. 33). 

To his disciples He said: “Let them alone; they be blind leaders 
of the blind” (Matt. xv:14). 

In His Sermon on the Mount, we have Jesus’ repeated negations 
of the traditions of the elders: “Ye have heard that it hath been 
said by them of old time, “Thou shalt,’ and ‘Thou shalt not,’ But 
I say unto you, contrariwise” (Matt. v:21, 27, 31, 33, 38, 43). 

II. Not only did Jesus utterly repudiate, “by word of mouth,” 
the Oral law and disallow the pretensions of its defenders; but 
in practice He habitually disregarded it, and treated as unworthy 
of notice the ethical obligations and restrictions imposed by the 
Rabbim. 

On a certain occasion He journeyed from Judza to Galilee, 
“and He must needs pass through Samaria.” He approached a 
village called Sychar. “Being wearied with His journey,’ He 
sat by Jacob’s well, and “there cometh a woman of Samaria to 
draw water. Jesus saith unto her, Give Me to drink.” Now here 
was serious breach of rules laid down by religious leaders of His 
nation. (1) It was a maxim, “Jews have no dealings with Samari- 
tans.” (2) The person here addressed was a woman, and it was a 
reproach for a rabbi to speak to a member of the other sex in public. 
When His disciples returned, “They marvelled that He was speak- 
ing with a woman,” but they held their peace. Jesus discoursed 


THE ATTITUDE OF JESUS 167 


with her on the Water of Life, the spirituality of worship, and 
made—so far as we know—the first announcement of His Mes- 
siahship. When she said, “I know that Messiah cometh, which is 
called Christ, when He is come, He will tell us all things,’ He 
Who “knew what was in man,” saw before Him a buffeted soul, 
yearning for the coming of the “Just One,” and He responded, 
“T that speak unto thee, am He.” Before this, “there was a man 
of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The 
same came to Jesus by night.” He, too, was “waiting for the 
Consolation of Israel’; but to this man—‘a teacher in Israel,” 
Jesus did not reveal Himself as the promised Messiah, while to 
this woman, of despised race, He said, “I that speak unto thee 
an Hei’ 

On receiving this announcement, the woman left her waterpot 
and hastened back to the village with the tidings. She “saith to 
the men: Come, see a Man which told me all things that ever I 
did: can this be the Christ?” Soon the inhabitants of Sychar are 
sallying forth to welcome the Messiah Whom this woman pro- 
claimed. The disciples had been in the city to procure food, but 
it is not recorded that they brought a single soul to Jesus; while 
it is “written for our admonition”; that “from that city many of 
the Samaritans believed on Him because of the word of the 
woman.’ She publicly proclaimed Christ to a congregation of 
men, and Jesus had no word of reproof to offer. 

We have on record another instance where the Divine Master 
set at naught rabbinical rulings concerning women. “He entered 
into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha, received 
Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also 
sat at the Lord’s feet and heard His word” (Luke x:38, 39). 

Among the Hebrews, daughters as well as sons were taught to 
read, but in the time of Christ it was regarded as highly improper 
to instruct a woman in the Oral law. The rabbinical schools of 
the age were as closely barred against her as have been the theolog- 
ical seminaries in Christian lands in bygone generations. No doc- 
tor of the law would consider her admission to discipleship. It 
was otherwise with Jesus. Mary was of those “who also sat at 
the Lord’s feet and heard His word.” 


- 


168 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


There is deeper import in this statement than appears on the 
surface. As to the manner of teaching in those days, Geikie says: 
“The teacher sat on a raised seat known as ‘the seat of Moses’ 
(Matt. xxiii:2) with his disciples ranged about him.” This gave 
currency to the expression, “‘sat at his feet.” It did not apply to 
a casual listener, nor even to an interested hearer; it had a definite 
and restricted meaning. The Apostle Paul said, “I ama Jew. . 
brought up in this city, at the feet of Gamaliel” (Acts xxti:3). 
There was a “school of the prophets” at Gilgal, and we read: 
“Elisha came again to Gilgal . . . and the sons of the prophets 
were sitting before him” (II Kings iv:38). Moses, in his farewell 
address, uses these words: “They sat down at Thy feet. Every one 
shall receive Thy word” (Deut. xxxiii:3). 


“She had a sister called Mary, which also (xat) sat at the Lord’s 
feet and heard His word.” We call attention to the word “also” 


(xat) What is its import? According to Thayer, “it generally 
throws an emphasis upon the word which immediately follows it.” 

But why stress if Mary were only an ordinary listener to one 
of Christ’s discourses? or even if she were a believer on Him 
in the common acceptation of the term? Either there is redun- 
dancy here, or “also” has significance. She “also sat at the Lord’s 
feet and heard His word.” This word “also” associates her with 
a group: it brings her into that inner circle which sustained special 
relationship with the Divine Master. 

Mark iv:10, we read: “When He was alone, they that were 
about Him with the Twelve, asked of Him the parables.” Also in 
Mark iv:34, “Privately to His own disciples, He expounded all 
things.” Aside from the Twelve, there was an inner circle of 
disciples who followed Jesus. To this group Mary belonged. 

It is by no means certain that Martha’s complaint against her 
sister was confined to the present occasion ;—more is implied. The 


verb is in the past tense. “My sister did leave (xatéAetxev) me.” 
The Aorist denotes a past occurrence “without limitations as to 
completion, continuance or repetition.” 

The answer of Jesus indicates beyond question that at some 
previous period Mary had made a definite choice—she had elected 


THE ATTITUDE OF JESUS 169 


(€&eAéEato) “the good part”; she had stepped aside from the 
routine of domestic cares to devote herself to service in the king- 
dom which Christ had come to establish. Martha, imbued with 
the rabbinical teachings of the age, disapproved of her sister’s 
choice ; she deemed it unwomanly, and appealed to Jesus to rebuke 
such behavior. We have His answer: “Mary hath chosen the 
good part, which shall not be taken from her.” With Divine 
approval she “also sat at the Lord’s feet and heard His word.” 
On a subsequent occasion we find Martha calling her sister secretly, 


saying “the Teacher (6 8:3décxahoc) is here, and calleth thee” 
(John xi:28). 

At a previous period in Christ’s ministry, “there came to Him 
His mother and His brethren and they could not come at Him for 
the crowd. And it was told Him, Thy mother and Thy brethren 
stand without, desiring to see Thee” (Luke viii:19, 20). “And 
He stretched forth His hand towards His disciples, and said, 
Behold My mother and My brethren: For whosoever shall do the 
will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is My brother, 
and sister, and mother’ (Matt. xii:49, 50). The reference here 
is not to the Twelve, but to that inner circle of disciples which 
“sat at the Lord’s feet and heard His word,” “they that were about 
Him with the Twelve” (Mk. iv:10), to whom He privately “ex- 
pounded all things” (Mk. iv:34), and in this group there were 
women as well as men. 

Not only did women sit “at the Lord’s feet,” and hear His 
word, but they, as well as the Twelve, accompanied Him on His 
preaching tours through Palestine. In Chapter VIII of Luke’s 
Gospel, we read: “It came to pass soon afterward, that He went 
about through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good 
tidings of the kingdom of God, and with Him the Twelve and 
certain women.’ ‘The names of some of these are given. There 
were Mary Magdalene; Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s stew- 
ard; Susanna; Salome, the wife of Zebedee; Mary, the mother of 
James, “and many others.’ In referring to these women after the 
Resurrection, the two disciples on the way to Emmaus designate 
them as “certain women of our company” (Luke xxiv:22). 

These elect women not only accompanied Jesus when “He went 


170 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


about through cities and villages preaching and bringing good 
tidings of the kingdom of God,” but they “ministered unto Him of 
their substance.” Tradition holds that Mary Magdalene was a 
woman of wealth; Joanna was the wife of a high official in the 
royal household. Doubtless there were other women of “sub- 
stance” among the “many others” who accompanied Him. 

Oral law had shorn woman of many rights and privileges, but 
she could still hold property—real and personal. 

The women whose devotion is here recorded attended Jesus on 
His mission tours “through cities and villages”; in company with 
the Twelve they journeyed with Him to Jerusalem; they followed 
Him to Calvary. “There were also women beholding from afar, 
among whom were both Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother 
of James the less and of Joses, and Salome; who, when He was 
in Galilee, followed Him and ministered unto Him: and many 
other women which came up with Him unto Jerusalem” (Mark 
xv:40, 41; Matt. xxvii:55, 56). Later we find four of these 
women at the foot of the Cross. John, an eye-witness of the 
Crucifixion, writes: “Now there were standing by the Cross of 
Jesus, His mother and His mother’s sister, Mary, the wife of 
Clopas, and Mary Magdalene” (John xix:25). 

They followed Him “through cities and villages”; they followed 
Him from Galilee to Calvary; they were early at the tomb; but 
nowhere is it written that Jesus expressed disapproval, or at any 
time enjoined them “to stay at home and learn of their husbands.” 

When the body of their Lord was taken from the cross and 
borne to the sepulcher, “The women which had come with Him 
out of Galilee followed after, and beheld the tomb and how His 
body was laid” (Luke xxiii:55). 

Where were the Twelve Apostles? Why are they not mentioned 
here, while three of the Sacred writers record the devotion of these 
women ? 

These “certain women” were early at the sepulcher that Easter 
morn when Christ “‘break the bands of death, to be no more holden 
by it.” “On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came 
unto the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared” 
(Luke xxiv:1). 


THE ATTITUDE OF JESUS 171 


Jesus appeared first—not to James, who was to become head 
of the Church at Jerusalem; not to Peter, who was to be primate 
of Catholicism; not to John, “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” who 
entered with Him, “into the court of the High Priest,” who stood 
by the cross, while all the other Apostles “forsook Him and fled’’— 
to none of these. “He appeared first to Mary Magdalene” (Mark 
Xvi :9). 

It was the boast of the Apostle Paul that the gospel he preached 
was “not after man”; neither did he “receive it from man’; it 
came to him “through revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. i:11, 12). 
No apostolic hands were laid in ordination on his head. If he 
were on earth today, the pulpit of no established church could open 
to him without special dispensation. His ordination to the Gospel 
ministry was “not after man.” In his Second Epistle to Timothy 


we read: “I was appointed (été6yv) a preacher and an Apostle,” 
but this does not signify ordination. Dr. Adam Clark says: “The 
word (été0yv) does not imply any imposition of hands by either 
bishop or presbyter, as is vulgarly supposed.” 

The same was true of the women “who were early at the sepul- 
cher.” They did not receive their commission “from man”; it 
came to them “through revelation of Jesus Christ.” Jesus said 
to Mary: “Go unto My brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto 
My Father and your Father, and My God and your God” (Jh. 
xx:17). To the women He said: “Fear not, go tell My brethren 
that they depart into Galilee, and there shall they see Me” (Matt. 
XXvili:10). 4 The angel said: “Go quickly, and tell His disciples, 
He is risen from the dead” (Matt. xxviii:7). No higher commis- 
sion to preach the Gospel was ever given. Dr. H. A. Thompson, 
author of “Women of the Bible,” says: “There is little wisdom 
in inquiring—shall women preach? when the Head of the Church 
Himself sent a woman out to preach the Resurrection before the 
sluggish male disciples had yet had apprehension of the fact.” 

When the Lord said unto the women, “Fear not, go tell My 
brethren that they depart into Galilee, and there shall they see Me,” 
He did not refer to the Apostles only. This is evident from the 
fact that He appeared unto them that same night in Jerusalem 


172 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


(Luke xxiv:13, 33, 34, 36; John xx:19). But His “brethren” 
were to depart into Galilee and there to see Him. 

“Brethren” was a broad term and covered the entire body of 
believers. Take, for example, Matthew xii:49: “He' stretched 
forth His hand toward His disciples, and said, Behold My mother 
and My brethren.” Luke viii:21: “My mother and My brethren, 
are these which hear the word of God and do it.” Matthew 
xxv:40: “Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these My brethren, 
these least, ye did it unto Me.” Hebrews 11:17: “It behoved Him 
in all things to be made like unto His brethren.” 

The angel said unto the women: “Go quickly, and tell His 
disciples, He is risen from the dead; and, lo, He goeth before you 
into Galilee; there shall ye see Him: lo, I have told you” (Matt. 
xxvill:7). “Disciples” was also a broad term. It was not limited 
to the Apostles. They were usually called the “Twelve,” the 
“Eleven,” and the “Apostles.” In Luke vi:13, we read: “When 
it was day, He called His disciples; and He chose from them 
twelve, whom also He named Apostles.” Joseph of Arimathza 
was called a disciple (Matt. xxvii:57; John xix:38). Tabitha, 
Timothy, Ananias and Mnason were each called “disciple,” but 
they were not of the Twelve. We read that, “the Pharisees had 
heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than 
John” (John iv:r). 

The women were divinely commissioned to proclaim the Resur- 
rection and the Ascension to the “brethren”; to the “disciples’— 
in other words, to the followers of Christ; and it is recorded in 
Luke xxiv :9, that they “returned from the tomb, and told all these 
things to the Eleven, and To ALL THE REsT.” About five hundred 
brethren assembled together and Christ appeared unto them (I Cor. 
xv:6). So far as our investigation has extended, the consensus 
of scholarship fixes this meeting in Galilee at “the mountain where 
Jesus had appointed.” Thither the Eleven also resorted (Matt. 
XXVili :16-20). 

Were the women who were commissioned by Christ to gather 
together this company of believers “into Galilee” in that assem- 
blage? Yea, verily. The angel said to them, “Lo, He goeth 


THE ATTITUDE OF JESUS 178 


before you into Galilee: there shall ye see Him” (Matt. xxviii:7; 
Mark xvi:7). 

The evening of the day of the Resurrection, Jesus appeared to 
the Apostles and “to THEM THAT WERE WITH THEM,’ as they were 
assembled behind closed doors for fear of the Jews (Luke xxiv :33; 
John xx:19-23), and said to them: “Peace be unto you, As the 
Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.” ‘He breathed on them 
and saith to them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” He “opened their 
minds that they might understand the Scripture.” He commis- 
sioned them—the Apostles “and them that were with them’’—to 
preach “repentance and remission of sins unto all the nations, 
beginning at Jerusalem.” James and John were present on this 
occasion. How about their mother Salome, who came up with 
Jesus “from Galilee unto Jerusalem? Cleopas was there (Luke 
xxiv :18, 33). How about his wife, Mary, who stood at the foot 
of the cross? xix:25). How about the “certain women of our 
company,” the first heralds of the Resurrection? Were they 
among “them that were with them,’ when their risen Lord 
“breathed on them,” and “opened their minds that they might 
understand the Scripture,’ and commissioned them to preach 
“repentance and remission of sins unto all the nations’? No 
names are recorded; we can only surmise, but we must admit the 
possibility—we go further and say, probability. 

On this occasion, and to this company, Jesus said: “Ye are 
witnesses of these things . . . but tarry ye in the city until ye be 
clothed with power from on high” (Luke xxiv:48, 49). 

This charge was renewed at the time of the Ascension. They 
were commanded “not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for 
the promise of the Father”—the Pentecostal baptism they were to 
receive—“not many days hence” (Acts i:4, 5). 

Now it is not recorded whether the women were present the 
night succeeding the Resurrection when Jesus appeared to the 
Apostles ‘and them that were with them,” or whether they were of 
the company that witnessed the Ascension, but there is certitude 
of one thing—they tarried in the city until they were “clothed with 
power from on high.” They departed not from Jerusalem, but 
waited for the “promise of the Father’’—the Pentecostal baptism 


174 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


which was to fit for the high service to which Christ had commis- 
sioned the Apostles “and them that were with them’’—and they 
received tt. 

Attention has at times been called to the fact that there were 
no women among the Twelve Apostles. This is true, and with 
reason. These men were chosen for a definite purpose—“that they 
might be with Him? (Mark iii:14). Except when Jesus sent them 
forth to preach, they were His constant attendants; they accom- 
panied Him day and night. It was the custom for a Jewish rabbi 
to have such convoy of disciples. Such close and sustained asso- 
ciation with a member of the opposite sex would have given rise 
to defamatory rumor. Jesus never compromised Himself or His 
disciples, He shunned “the very appearance of evil.’ He stood 
before His own, and all subsequent generations with the challenge 
—‘‘Which of you convicteth Me of sin?” 

There were no women among the Twelve, neither were there 
any Gentiles; yet no one, in these days, would urge that because 
of this the Jew should take precedence in the church of Jesus 
Christ. In the primitive church there was strife over the status 
of the Jew and Gentile, the Hebrew Christians deeming themselves 
privileged above converts outside the pale of Judaism, and the fact 
that the Twelve Apostles were all Israelites may have been ad- 
vanced in support of their claim, but it has no weight in ecclesias- 
tical polity today. In time the Pauline maxim, at least in part, 
prevailed: “There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be 
neither bond nor free, ... for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” 
(Gal. 11:28). 


In the foregoing pages we have studied the attitude of Jesus in 
relation to His practice; but how about His precepts? What 
restrictions did He impose on womankind? Since the world.began, 
founders, propounders, and expounders of religious cults have 
felt it incumbent on them to shove woman into a circumscribed 
area, and with pointed finger to warn her not to trespass on the 
divine prerogative of man. Zoroaster, Lycurgus, Solon, Lao-Tse, 
Confucius, Draco, Gautama, and Mahomet legislated her restrain- 
ment; Rabbim weighted the Oral law with maxims concerning the 


THE ATTITUDE OF JESUS 175 


sex ; the Apostle Peter had his say; the Apostle Paul expressed his 
opinion on the subject; Apostolic and Church Fathers expatiated 
on the theme; Councils dogmatized and launched decretals. But 
how about Jesus Christ? How about THE TEACHER? What were 
His pronouncements on the question? Amid this babel of voices, 
has He nothing to say? While mankind in general are vocif- 
erating, why is He silent? Why does He stand apart from all the 
religious teachers of the world in this matter? Never, so far as 
we know, did Jesus utter a single sentence in abridgment of the 
domestic, social, or religious privileges of woman. 

On one occasion the scribes and Pharisees brought before Him 
a sinful woman and said to Him: “Teacher, this woman hath been 
taken in adultery.” ‘Now in the law Moses commanded us to 
stone such: what then sayest thou of her?’ (They neglected to 
mention that Mosaic Law sentenced the adulterer as well as the 
adulteress to death.) ‘But Jesus stooped down, and with His 
finger wrote on the ground. But when they continued asking Him, 
He litted up Himself and said unto them, He that is without sin 
among you, let him first cast a stone at her, . . . and they, when 
they heard it, went out one by one, beginning from the eldest, unto 
the last; and Jesus was left alone, and the woman, where she was, 
in the midst.” 

Our Divine Lord did not extenuate the guilt of this woman. 
He said to her: “Go thy way; from henceforth sin no more,” but 
He refused to pass sentence against her so long as her guilty 
paramour, whose apprehension would have been as easy as hers, 
was allowed to go free, and while her accusers stood self-con- 
demned. He refused to approve a double standard. He rebuked 
the cry of His own and of subsequent ages, “Stone the woman and 
let the man go free.” 

Let the reader of this volume call fhe roster of the men who have 
founded religious sects since the world began, and point to one, 
if he can, aside from Jesus Christ, who did not discriminate, in 
some way, against woman. Even Buddha limited the equality of 
the sexes to matters spiritual. Jesus Christ stands apart from all 
these founders in this respect—He never by word or deed, lent 
encouragement to the disparagement of woman. 


176 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


What inference must be drawn from this aloofness of Jesus? 
How may we interpret His silence on a living issue? 

To the author it seems that this refrainment on the part of 
Christ must be attributed to one of two causes—indifference or 
disapproval. No one would for a moment harbor the thought 
that it was remissness, cowardice, or a desire to evade the question, 
that sealed the lips of our Divine Lord. 

Was He unconcerned? Here was a matter of moment; it had 
disturbed the equilibrium of the race through long centuries; it 
involved the happiness of one-half the human family; its very 
mention set the heart of womanhood to palpitating ;—Was Jesus 
indifferent? He noted the sparrows, the “lilies of the field,”’ and 
the “two mites which make a farthing,’ and here was a great 
question, reaching back to the gates of Paradise Lost, and stretch- 
ing forward to the end of time. Did He pass it over as unworthy 
His attention? .Far be it from us to accept such explanation of 
the silence of Jesus. 

Was it disapproval of man’s self-imposed task to supervise 
woman—to outline her behavior? The author finds no escape 
from such conclusion. It may be objected, if such was the attitude 
of Jesus, why did He not, instead, offer open rebuke? Our answer 
is that His daily deportment toward the sex was a standing reproof 
to the spirit of His age. He set at naught every man-imposed 
restriction on woman. He recognized no double standard: with 
/ Him there was no such thing as a preferred sex. He stood woman 
side by side with man, and addressed her as a member of the 
human family. He never singled her out for special instruction. 
He dealt not with sexes, but with souls. No wonder when He 
walked the Dolorous Way to Calvary, women followed Him and 
“bewailed and lamented Him; But Jesus, turning unto them, said, 
Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for your- 
selves and your children.” 

Verily, “never man spake like this Man.” 


IX 
DURING THE INAUGURATION OF CHRISTIANITY 
A he the Ascension, the Apostles and they “that were with 


_them” assembled in an “upper room” in Jerusalem, to 
await “the promise of the Father.” They were in all, 
“about a hundred and twenty” (Acts i:15). “These all with one 
accord continued steadfastly in prayer, with the women” (Acts 
1:14), for a period of ten days, and then—‘“‘when the day of Pente- 
cost was now come, they were all together in one place: And 
suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of the rushing of a 
mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. 
And there appeared unto them tongues, parting asunder like as of 
fire, and it sat upon each one of them. And they were all filled 
with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues as 
the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 11:1-4). 

We notice here that “they were all together,” “about a hundred 
and twenty’—men and women. The “tongues parting asunder 
like as of fire,” “sat upon each one of them”—women as well as 
men. “They were all’—-women as well as men—“‘filled with the 
Holy Spirit, and began to speak’”—women as well as men—“with 
other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.” 

The word here translated, “utterance,” is drogbéyyec8ar. Of 
this word Joseph Henry Thayer, D.D., says: “Not a word of every- 
day speech, but one ‘belonging to dignified and elevated discourse,’ 
like the Latin profari, pronuntiare; properly, it has the force of 
to utter or declare one’s self, give one’s opinion, and is used not 
only of prophets, but also of wise men and philosophers, whose 
pointed sayings the Greeks call drogbéyuata.” (“Greek-English 
Lexicon of the New Testament,” p. 69). 

The Apostle Paul uses this word in his defense before Agrippa. 
“T am not mad, most noble Festus: but speak forth (drog8éy youct) 
words of truth and soberness” (Acts xxvi:25). 

177 


178 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


On the day of Pentecost, women as well as men uttered “digni- 
fied and elevated discourse.” They spoke “with other tongues as 
the Spirit gave them utterance.” In proof whereof we cite the 
words of the Apostle Peter: “This is that which hath been spoken 
by the prophet Joel: 


‘And it shall be in the last days saith God, 
I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all flesh: 
And your sons and your pects shall prophesy.’ 


ire and upon aes servants Atal on IMy hendnendens 
In those days will I pour forth of My Spirit; 
And they shall prophesy.’ ” 


Peter points to this prophecy as fulfilled on the day of Pente- 
cost. It was not fulfilled unless the “daughters” and “hand- 
maidens” prophesied—spoke to “men edification, comfort and con- 
solation” (I Cor. xiv:3). 

In I Corinthians xii:7, we read: “To each one is given the mani- 
festation of the Spirit to profit withal.’ Why, we ask, did the 
Holy Spirit, on this day of Pentecost, bestow on these women the 
gift of tongues, if they were not “to profit withal’? We may 
assume that they exercised their gifts in private, and the men exer- 
cised theirs in public, but the Bible does not say so. The evidence 
is to the contrary. “If then God gave unto them the like gifts,” 
as He did unto the men, who is he that will “withstand God’’? 

Dr. A. J. Gordon, in an article entitled “The Ministry of 
Women,” published in ‘““The Missionary Review,” December, 1894, 
says: “Paul, in referring back to the great baptism through which 
the Church of the New Covenant was ushered in, says: ‘For as 
many of you as were baptized into Christ, did put on Christ; 
there can be neither Jew nor Greek; there can be neither bond nor 
free; there can be no male and female, for ye are all one in Christ 
Jesus” (Gal. iii:28). 

A question arises here: Did these women, “baptized with the 
Holy Ghost” (Acts i:15), and to whom was imparted a double 
portion—the gift of tongues (Acts ii:4) and the gift of prophecy, 
(Acts 11:17, 18; I Cor. xii:10)—“profit withal” after the day of 


DURING INAUGURATION OF CHRISTIANITY 179 


Pentecost, or were their ministrations confined to that occasion? 
In order to reach a safe conclusion on this point, several facts 
must be brought into consideration: 

First, we ask—How about the men? How about the Apostles 
and the “brethren” who were with them? Were the gifts 
meted out to them by the Spirit a permanent bestowment, or 
did they cease with the going down of the sun? Has the question 
ever been asked in seriousness? Jesus said unto the Apostles and 
“them that were with them’: “Thus it is written that the Christ 
should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day; And 
that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His 
name unto all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Ye are witnesses 
of these things. And behold I send the promise of My Father 
upon you, but tarry ye in the city until ye be clothed with power 
from on high” (Luke xxiv :46-48). “Ye shall receive power when 
the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be My witnesses, 
both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the 
uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8, 9). 

Both in Luke xxiv :46-48, and Acts 1:8, 9, the promised out- 
pouring of the Spirit is conjoined with the commission to proclaim 
the gospel “unto all nations’—‘“unto the uttermost part of the 
earth.” Lest mankind should separate them—even in thought— 


the sacred writer tied them together with a conjunction (xat). 

Were the women intruders in that “upper room’? If so, why 
did not the Holy Spirit single them out? Why did He bestow on 
them “like gift” with the men? By what process of reasoning 
do we reach the conclusion that their endowment was temporary, 
while that of the “brethren” was for the period of their natural 
life? Who gave to us the authority to limit their ministrations to 
that “upper room”? Of what use their gift of “other tongues,” 
if their activities were confined to the narrow circle of their own 
acquaintances? Whose hand struck out of their commission the 
words, “Ye shall be My witnesses,’ “Jerusalem,” “All Judza,” 
“Samaria,” “Uttermost part of the earth’? 

In a sermon which the Apostle Peter afterward preached in 
the house of Cornelius, at Czsarea, he uses these words: “Him 
God raised up the third day, and gave Him to be made manifest, 


180 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God.” 
Were these women who “came up with Him out of Galilee,” to 
whom Christ first appeared after the Resurrection, and who were 
“anointed with power from on high,” in that “upper room,” among 
the “witnesses chosen before of God”? In Acts xiii:30, 31, the 
Apostle Paul says: “God raised Him from the dead: and He was 
seen for many days of them that came up with Him from Galilee 
to Jerusalem, who are now His witnesses unto the people.” 

Among those who “came up with Him: from Galilee to Jeru- 
salem,’ who saw Him “after He rose from the dead,” were “Mary 
Magdalene, and Mary, the mother of James the Less, and Salome,” 
and “many other women.” Were they “now His witnesses unto 
the people”? 

The women in that “upper room” were empowered by the Holy 
Spirit to proclaim the Gospel within the sacred precincts of the 
church. The Apostle Peter pointed to the prophecy of Joel as 
fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. In this we have certain proof 
that the “daughters” and “handmaidens”’ prophesied (I Cor. 
xiv:3). In his First Epistle to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul 
declares: “Prophesying is for a sign, not to the unbelieving, but 
to them that believe’ (v. 22). “He that prophesieth edifieth the 
church” (v. 4). In the twelfth chapter of the same Epistle, he 
further declares: “Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same 
Spirit” (v. 4). Among the gifts enumerated as bestowed by the 
Spirit are “prophecy” and “kinds of tongues” (xii:10). The 
women in that “upper room” having received the baptism of the 
Holy Ghost; and this same Spirit having bestowed on them the 
gift of prophecy—speaking “unto men edification and comfort and 
consolation”’—and this gift being given “to profit withal,”’ and 
“for a sign, not to the unbelieving, but to them that believe”—all 
this being conceded, there is no escape from the conclusion that 
these women were empowered to proclaim the Gospel to believers 
—in other words, to the church of Jesus Christ. 

But further: The Holy Ghost also endowed them with the gift 
of tongues; they “began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit 
gave them utterance.” In I Corinthians xiv :22, we read: “Tongues 
are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to the unbelieving.” 


DURING INAUGURATION OF CHRISTIANITY 181 


These women were empowered to proclaim the Gospel, not only 
to Christ’s followers—the church—but also to unbelievers—to the 
great unsaved multitudes. Nor were their ministrations to be con- 
fined to their kindred and race. If this were all, their own ver- 
nacular would meet the requirement, but “the uttermost part of 
the earth,” could only be reached through the gift of tongues. 

That the gift of tongues on this occasion was not sporadic is 
evident from the fact that years later this gift was in existence in 
the church at Corinth (I Cor. xii:10). 

The Holy Spirit divideth “to each one severally as He will” 
(I Cor. xii:11). The Holy Ghost willed that these women should 
prophesy and speak with “other tongues,” and he divided unto them 
severally—not as man willed—but as He willed for the work 
whereunto He called them. 

Another circumstance that strengthens the claim that these 
women exercised the gifts bestowed upon them, after the day of 
Pentecost, is found in the fact that neither Oral law nor Jewish 
custom forbade a woman to prophesy. The Rabbim had, in many 
respects, made void the word of God by their traditions, but they 
could not erase from their sacred writings the names of Miriam, 
Deborah, and Huldah; so the door was left ajar and woman might 
enter, regardless of the restrictions otherwise imposed upon her 
sex. It was because of this, that “Anna, a prophetess,” was per- 
mitted to stand side by side with Simeon, within the sacred pre- 
cincts of the Temple, and to give thanks unto God and to speak 
of Christ “to all them that were looking for the redemption of 
Jerusalem.” 

Twenty years after the day of Pentecost we find women proph- 
esying in Jewry. When the Apostle Paul was on his last recorded 
journey to Jerusalem, he tarried “many days’ “at the house of 
Philip the evangelist” (Acts xxi:8). This man was one of the 
Seven (Acts vi:5, xxi:8). He “had four daughters, virgins, 
which did prophesy” (Acts xxi:9). If, in a single home, there 
were four women prophets, is it reasonable to assume that through- 
out the extended church there were no others? 

Another fact that merits consideration in our study of the 
question is this: In the days of primitive Christianity, the place 


182 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


of assemblage was, more often perhaps than otherwise, a private 
dwelling. The ten days’ prayer-meeting that ushered in the day 
of Pentecost was held in an “upper room,” where the Apostles 
were abiding during their stay in Jerusalem (Acts 1:13). This 
was, in all probability, the large “guest chamber,’ where Christ 
and His Apostles partook of the Passover feast and where the 
Lord’s Supper was instituted (Mark xiv:15; Luke xxii:12). The 
Apostle Paul, in his epistles, makes mention of “Prisca and 
Aquila” and “the church that is in their house’ (Rom. xvi:3-5; 
I Cor. xvi:9). He writes: “Gaius my host, and of the whole 
church” (Rom. xvi:23). “Salute . .. Nymphas and the church 
that is in their house’ (Col. iv:15). It may be noted here that some 
ancient authorities read “her house.’ “Nymphas,” as it appears in 
the Greek, may be rendered ““Nympha.” He writes to Philemon: 
“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus 
Christ” and “to the church in thy house” (Phile. 2, 3). When 
released from prison at Philippi, he entered into the house of Lydia 
and exhorted the brethren (Acts xvi:40). At Corinth, “he rea- 
soned in the synagogue every Sabbath,” but when the Jews 
“opposed themselves and blasphemed,” “He departed thence and 
went into the house of a certain man named Justus” (Acts 
xviil:4-7). At-Troas, the Christian converts celebrated the Lord’s 
Supper in an “upper chamber,” and here Paul discoursed “till 
break of day” (Acts xx:7-11). 

Peter preached in the house of Cornelius (Acts x:22-27). 
During their missionary tours, Paul, Barnabas, and Silas availed 
themselves of the freedom of the synagogue-service and proclaimed 
Jesus as the Messiah; but when the organization of a church fol- 
lowed, it was necessary to provide other place of worship, and 
where converts were not numerous, a private dwelling served the 
purpose. Paul reminded the elders that he had taught the 
Ephesians “publicly and from house to house” (Acts xx:20). In 
Rome he preached “in his own hired house” for two years. 


“Traces of these earliest house-churches survived in happier 
days,” says Lindsay. “The ground plan of the earliest Roman 
church, discovered in 1900 in the forum at Rome, is modelled not 
on the basilica or public hall, but on the audience hall of the wealthy 


DURING INAUGURATION OF CHRISTIANITY 183 


Roman burgher.” ... “The earliest traces we find of buildings 
set apart exclusively for Christian worship dates from the begin- 
ning of the Third Century.” ... “We must remember that the 
meetings of the congregation were held in private houses” (‘““The 
Church and the Ministry in the Early Centuries,’ pp. 42, 43). 


Every circumstance of the case indicates that the women in that 
upper room in Jerusalem were among the “witnesses chosen before 
God” to proclaim the Resurrection and the Ascension; to preach 
“repentance and remission of sins unto all nations, beginning from 
Jerusalem.” They received the same baptism as the “Apostles and 
brethren,” and in like measure—“they were all filled.” To them 
were imparted the same gifts—“prophecy” and “kinds of tongues” ; 
and for the same purpose—“to profit withal.”’ 

We may assume that these women were anointed with “power 
from on high,” in order that they might proclaim the Gospel to 
their own sex, and that their ministrations were confined to such, 
but it is not so written. If this were the case, we must in all fair- 
ness assume the same regarding the “men and brethren.” They 
were “anointed with power from on high” in order that they might 
proclaim the Gospel to their own sex, and to confine their minis- 
trations to such. 

Having received the same baptism—at the same time and in the 
same place, and in like measure; having imparted to them the 
same gifts and for the same purpose, it is audacious to assume, 
without warrant of Scripture, that the women were restricted as 
to time, place and manner, while the “apostles and brethren” were 
allowed unlimited opportunity for the exercise of their gifts. 

Peter, in his sermon on the day of Pentecost, adduced the 
prophecy of Joel, and pointed to its fulfillment. Referring back, 
we read: “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy” (ii:28). 
Here we have two conjoined substantives—“sons” and “daughters” 
—nominatives to the same predicate-—“shall prophesy”; and we 
do violence to the rules of grammar and of exegesis, and offend 
our own sense of justice by qualifying the verb in the one case, and 
neglecting to do so in the other. 

One fact—and one alone—has prevented the unanimity of man- 


184 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


kind on this question, and that fact is—sex. If there had been no 
women in that upper room; or if the Holy Spirit had stood them 
aside, the query as to the time, place and manner in which the 
imparted gifts were exercised would never have been raised. 
Exegetes would never have quibbled over the matter; redactors 
would never have scurried about with suppositions. The consensus 
of opinion would have been that the “baptism from on high” was 
a sure indicant of Divine approval; that the measure of the allot- 
ment marked the circumference of the sphere; that the conferment 
of the gifts was sufficient warranty for their exercise; that the 
bestowment of the talent was authorization to “trade therewith” 
“until He come again.” 


As there were women prophets in the primitive church, it can 
scarcely be questioned that there were also women evangelists. In 
Acts viii we read that on the day of Stephen’s death there arose 
“a great persecution against the church which was in Jerusalem; 
and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of 
Judzea and Samaria, except the apostles” (v:1). “They therefore 


that were scattered abroad went about preaching (edayyedtGducvor) 
the word” (v. 4). In Acts xi:19, 20, we read: “They therefore 
that were scattered abroad upon the tribulation that arose about 
Stephen, travelled as far as Phoenicia, and Cyprus and Antioch, 
speaking the word to none save only to Jews. But there were some 
of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they came to 
Antioch, spake unto the Greeks also, preaching (eUayyeArGduevor) 
the Lord Jesus.” 

Among the most violent of the persecutors of this church in 
Jerusalem was Saul of Tarsus (Acts xxvi:10). “Entering into 
every house, and hailing men and women,” he committed them to 
prison. “In the dispersion, women as well as men fled from the 
city”; “they were all scattered abroad . . . except the apostles,” 
and they “that were scattered abroad went about preaching the 


word.” The word here translated “preaching” is evayyektGw— 
“to announce glad-tidings.” The bearers of these glad tidings 


were (evayyektoti}s) evangelists. The term was applied in a gen- 


DURING INAUGURATION OF CHRISTIANITY 185 


eral sense to Gospel messengers who were not of the Eleven. Paul 
wrote to Timothy: “Do the work of an evangelist,’ Philip was 
one of the Seven (Acts vi:5) and an evangelist (Acts xxi:8). In 
a restricted sense the word was applied to an order in the church 
ranking next to the prophets: “He gave some to be apostles, and 
some prophets; and some evangelists, and some pastors and teach- 
ers’ (Eph. iv:11). In the case under consideration the bearers 
of the glad tidings may have included prophets, evangelists, 
teachers, or even lay members. “Scattered abroad,” driven out of 
Jerusalem—they went about preaching the word—in the syna- 
gogues where such were available—in the open air—in private 
dwellings. 

There can be no reasonable doubt that among these propa- 
gandists of the Gospel were many women. The church in Jeru- 
salem included both sexes; they were all scattered abroad “except 
the apostles,” and they “that were scattered abroad went about 
preaching the word.”’ Both sacred and profane history testify to 
the large part women took in the first century in the spread of the 
Gospel. According to Professor Harnack, “The church of the 
second century objected very strongly to the prominent position 
of women in the apostolic age.” 

From the very first, women were responsive to the Gospel mes- 
sage. When Paul and Barnabas went forth to the work whereunto 
the Holy Spirit had called them, women were eager respondents to 
the Gospel message. Kurtz, in his “Church History,” Vol. I, p. 36, 
relates that ere this, “many of the better aspiring heathens, who 
were no longer satisfied with their sorely degraded forms of re- 
ligion,” had accepted Judaism to the extent of becoming “proselytes 
of the Gate,” “who, without observing the whole of the ceremonial 
law, undertook to abandon their idols and to worship Jehovah.” 
“In all ranks of society, mostly women.” He adds: “It was just 
among these that Christianity found hearty and friendly ac- 
ceptance.” 

It was the same when Paul, accompanied by Silas, went forth 
on his second missionary journey. At Lystra, there were Lois 
and Eunice—women of “unfeigned faith’ (Acts xvi:1; II Tim. 
1:5). Lydia was the first-named convert on European soil; and 


186 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


the church of Philippi was organized in her home (Acts xvi:14, 
15,40). Here, ten years later, we find Euodia and Syntyche, and 
Paul writes: “I exhort Euodia and Syntyche to be of the same 
mind in the Lord. Yea, I beseech thee also, true yokefellow, help 
these women, for they labored with me in the gospel’ (Phil. 
iv:2, 3). At Thessalonica, some of the Jews, a great multitude 
of “devout Greeks,” “and of the chief women not a few” “‘were 
persuaded and consorted with Paul and Silas” (Acts xvii:4). “At 
Bercea many of them therefore believed: also of the Greek women 
of honorable estate, and of men, not a few’ (Acts xvii:I2). 
“Among the converts at Athens were Dionysius the Areopagite, 
and a woman named Damaris” (Acts xvii:34). This woman must 
have been a person of distinction; otherwise she would not have 
been singled out and mentioned in connection with Dionysius, one 
of the judges of the great court. According to Dr. Adam Clark, 
“no person was a judge in the Areopagus who had not borne the 
office of Archon, or chief governor of the city.” 

Damaris was, in all probability, one of the Hetairai. The reader 
will recall that these women constituted a highly intellectual class. 
They were themselves philosophers and stateswomen, and asso- 
ciated with men of the same rank or station. This may account 
for her being present when Paul delivered his address on Mars 
Hill. We learn from Acts xvii:18 that his encounter was with 
certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, who “took hold of him, 
and brought him unto the Areopagus.” 

Some have suggested that Damaris was the wife of Dionysius. 
This is altogether improbable for two reasons: (1) The Greek 
wife lived in seclusion. The Hetairai were the only free women 
in Athens. If Damaris had been a wife, her presence in that con- 
course on Mars Hill would have been an unwonted occurrence. 
(2) If the wife of Dionysius, she would have been, as Oriental 
custom required, mentioned as such. Instead of “a woman named 
Damaris,’”’ we would have—“and his wife Damaris’; or more 
likely still, her name would be omitted, and the record would 
stand: Dionysius the Areopagite and his wife. In Athens wives 
were the adjuncts of their husbands; the Hetairai, on the other 
hand, were their companions. 


DURING INAUGURATION OF CHRISTIANITY 187 


Professor Harnack asserts that the prejudice against women, 
in the church of the second century, was such as “caused the 
gradual modification of various passages in the Acts” (“Dictionary 
of the Bible,’ Hastings, Vol. IV, p. 102). We call attention to the 
statement of Ramsey (“The Church in the Roman Empire,’ p. 
101), that the name of Damaris was omitted from the Western 
text (Acts xvii:34). 


In Acts xviii we meet with a woman who was an outstanding 
character in the New Testament church. We read: “After these 
things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth. And he 
found a certain Jew named Aquila, a man of Pontus by race, lately 
come from Italy with his wife Priscilla . .. and he came unto 
them; and because he was of the same trade, he abode with them” 
(vs. 1-3). “And he dwelt there a year and six months, teaching 
the word of God among them” (v. 11). “After this, yet many 
days [he], took his leave of the brethren and sailed for Syria, and 
with him Priscilla and Aquila, ... and they came to Ephesus 
and he left them there” (vs. 11, 18, 19). “Now a certain Jew 
named Apollos, ...a learned man, came to Ephesus; and he 
was mighty in the scriptures” (v. 24). “And he began to speak 
boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard 


him, they took him unto them and expounded (é&é0evto) unto him 
the way of God more carefully” (v. 26). We notice here that the 
pronouns “they” and “them” and the verb “é&é@eyto” are plurals, 
and that the name of Priscilla precedes that of her husband, indi- 
cating that she was the chief actor. In the Authorized Version 
we have the reverse order—Aquila’s name stands first. This is 
doubtless due to the fact that King James’ translators did not 
have access to the earlier manuscripts. The Revised Version has 
rectified this error and Priscilla’s name takes proper place. 


A. C. Headlam, writing in “The Dictionary of the Bible” 
(Hastings, Vol. IV, p. 102), says: “The variations in the text of 
Acts xvili:1-27 have been examined very carefully by Harnack, 
who shows that the longer text (usually called the Western, or by 
Blass, B.) is clearly formed out of the shorter, and suggests that 


188 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


it has been modified by an interpolator who objected to the too 
great prominence given to a woman, and has made the position of 
Priscilla less prominent.” 

Acts xviii:26 we are told that Priscilla expounded the way of 
God to Apollos. Here we have a woman not only teaching, but 
expounding to a man—a “learned man” and one “mighty in the 
scriptures”’—and this after the Apostle Paul’s residence in her 
home at Corinth, where she had abundant opportunity to learn his 
views on the “woman question.” 


The word here translated “expounded” is éx-ttOyyt. It is the 
same word as that used in Acts xi:4. ‘When Peter was come up 
to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended with 
him, saying, Thou wentest into men uncircumcised and didst eat 


with them. But Peter began and expounded (é&ett@eto) unto them 
in order.” The word also occurs in Acts xxviii:23. Paul had 
reached Rome, and after three days he called together “those that 
were the chief of the Jews,” “And when they had appointed him 
a day, they came to him into his lodging in great numbers; to whom 
he expounded (éEet{Qeto) the matter, testifying the kingdom of 
God.” 

Dr. A. J. Gordon, in an able article in the “Missionary Review,” 
says: “It is evident that the Holy Spirit made this woman Priscilla 
a teacher of teachers.” 

It may be interesting to note in this connection that Professor 
Adolph V. Harnack ascribes the authorship of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews to this woman, and gives eight reasons for such con- 
clusion." 

A. C. Headlam, in the “Dictionary of the Bible,” Vol. IV, p. 102, 
comments thus: 


“An interesting suggestion which has the merit of novelty has 
been made by Professor Harnack, that in Priscilla and Aquila we 
have the authors of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Prisca and Aquila 
were, we know, teachers of prominence who had turned Apollos to 
Christianity ; they belonged to the intimate circle of Paul’s friends. 


1 See Appendix A. 


DURING INAUGURATION OF CHRISTIANITY 189 


. . . They had for some time been connected with a small Christian 
community in Rome, and the Epistle to the Hebrews was clearly, 
he argues, written to Rome. . . . They were with Italian connec- 
- tion, but living outside Italy. In the Epistle there is a curious 
interchange of ‘We’ and ‘I.’ Lastly, the authorship of Priscilla 
will explain why the writing is now anonymous. The church of 
the Second Century objected very strongly to the prominent posi- 
tion of women in the Apostolic Age. This had caused the gradual 
modification of various passages in the Acts and the desire to 
separate this work from the name of Priscilla.” 


In a personal letter to the author of this volume, Dr. Harnack 
summarizes thus: 


“My article appeared in the ‘Zeitschrift ftir die Neutestament- 
liche Wissenschaft,’ January, 1900, pp. 16-41, under the title: 
‘The Probability of the Address and the Author of the Letter to 
the Hebrews.’ Substance: 

“t. We can undoubtedly be assured that the letter was written 
to Rome,—not to the church, but to the inner circle. Rom. xv:5. 

“2, It is an amazing fact that the name of the author is lost. 
All names mentioned as possible authors do not explain why the 
earliest tradition blotted it out. 

“3. The problem is this: Since the letter (according to the 
closing verses of Chapter 13) was written by a person of high 
standing and an apostolic teacher of equal rank with Timothy, and 
if Luke, or Clemens, or Barnabas, or Apollos, had written it, we 
do not understand why their names or signatures should have been 
obliterated, hence we must look for a person who was intimately 
associated with Paul and Timothy, as the author, that we may 
understand why the name is not given. This can only be Priscilla: 

“(a) She had a so-called inner circle in Rome—‘The church 
that is in their house’ (Rom. xvi:5). 

“(b) She was an Apostolic teacher of high standing, and known 
throughout Christendom of that day (Rom. chap. 16). 

“(c) She was the teacher of the intelligent and highly educated 
Apollos (Acts 18). 

“(d) She and Aquila labored and taught together, and thus we 
see ‘I,’ and then again the pronoun ‘we’ used. 


190 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


“These are the main reasons, but I advise you to read the entire 
article. 
“With highest esteem, 
“GRror WO. Vs AARNACK sr 


In the “Epistle to the Hebrews” itself, we find criteria to aid 

us in our search for the author: 

1. Its writer was undoubtedly a Jew; 

2. A Hellenist; 

3. A nonresident of Palestine; 

4. Unacquainted with the details of the Temple ritual ; 

5. Wrote before the destruction of Jerusalem and the termina- 
tion of the Temple worship; 

6. The disciple of an Apostle; 

7. A friend of Timothy; 

8. Had personal acquaintance with the addressed; 

9. Well versed in Old Testament Scripture ; 

10. Had access to Alexandrian Jewish literature, and knowledge 
of the teachings of Philo; 

11. Within the Pauline circle, and attached to Pauline theology ; 

12. A scholar of marked ability and attainment ; 

13. An individual of prominence and of authority in the primi- 
tive church. 

Now we apply these tests to the men who have been proposed 
as the possible author of this Epistle and how do they qualify? 
Even the Apostle Paul must be set aside. Barnabas was a Levite, 
familiar with the Temple ritual, and a frequenter of Jerusalem. 
Apollos commands the suffrage of many modern scholars, but 
even he fails to meet all the requirements. 

We might go through the entire roster of men proposed as the 
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and find everyone falling 
short in some requirement. How about Priscilla? Let us apply 
the tests in her case. 

I. She was a Jew (Acts xviii:2). 

2. She was a Hellenist (Acts xviii:2). 

3. A nonresident of Palestine. We find her in Rome (Acts 
Xvili:2, Rom. xvi:3-5); Corinth (Acts xviii:2); Ephesus (Acts 


DURING INAUGURATION OF CHRISTIANITY 191 


Xvili:18, 19, 24-26); and she was known to “all the churches 
of the Gentiles,’ but there is no intimation in Scripture or in 
ecclesiastical literature that she ever visited Palestine. 

4. The author of this Epistle was evidently unacquainted with 
the details of the Temple ritual. The descriptions apply to the 
Tabernacle of the Pentateuch. If, as all the circumstances in- 
dicate, Priscilla never visited Palestine, she would have no per- 
sonal knowledge of the minutia of the Temple worship at the 
dawn of the Christian era. | 

5. The contents of the Epistle show that it was written after 
the release of Timothy (xii:23) and before the destruction of 
Jerusalem and the finality of the Temple worship (viii:4, 5). The 
Acts of the Apostles carry us to the close of the second year of 
Paul’s Roman imprisonment. The Second Epistle to Timothy, 
the Apostle’s last extant message, is believed by the generality 
of scholars to have been written a short time before his martyrdom. 
In neither of these documents is there any mention of Timothy’s 
arrest or incarceration, so it is reasonable to conclude that it was 
a subsequent event. A reference to II Timothy iv:9-13, indicates 
that he was about to start on a journey to Rome with the ex- 
pectation of seeing the Apostle. It is more than likely that on 
the occasion of his arrival he was apprehended. His effort to 
communicate with a prisoner under sentence to death would 
awaken suspicion. The writing of The Epistle to the Hebrews 
followed his release and before the downfall of Jerusalem. Under 
these circumstances it is safe to fix the date between 67 and 70 a. p. 
Tradition, inscriptions, and New Testament Scripture prove con- 
clusively that during this period and anterior, Priscilla was an 
outstanding character in the churches within the Pauline area. 

6. She was a disciple of the “great Apostle to the Gentiles.” 
There is no controversy here. 

7. She was a friend of Timothy. When Paul came to Corinth, 
he took his abode with Aquila and Priscilla (Acts xviii:3). While 
he was yet an inmate of this home he was joined by Silas and 
Timothy (Acts xviii:5). There is every probability that these 
new arrivals shared the hospitality of this worthy couple until 
Paul departed thence and “went into the house of a certain man 


192 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


named Titus Justus . . . whose house joined hard to the syna- 
gogue” (Acts xviii:7). Timothy, Priscilla and Aquila were also 
associates in labor at Ephesus. In his last extant epistle the 
Apostle Paul sends greetings, through Timothy, to “Prisca and 
Aquila.” 

8. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews was personally ac- 
quainted with the parties addressed. This at once opens the ques- 
tion as to its destination. This is a matter of vital moment for 
it fixes the abode of the writer. In the thirteenth chapter, nine- 
teenth verse, we find a significant expression: “That I may be 
restored to you the sooner.” This can only import that the author 
was a fellow-townsman, absent for a season, and contemplating 
a return. 

There has been much speculation as to the destination of this 
epistle. That it was not an encyclical letter is apparent. In a 
number of passages a particular group is addressed (v:II, 12; 
MISA S MUTA RE 7 TO) 23h eb al niee rOLessor jitiarnacke says 
“We can undoubtedly be assured that the letter was written to 
Rome.” The author of this volume thinks otherwise. With the 
data at our command we conclude that the epistle was written at 
Rome, and addressed to a group of believers residing in one of the 
provinces—probably the church at Ephesus—in justification 
whereof we submit the following: 

(a) The earliest traces of this writing are found at Rome. 
This would indicate that it was addressed to or from that city. 

(b) Hebrews xiii:24. “They of Italy salute you.” An un- 
constrained interpretation of this passage favors Rome, or some 
outlying district within the bounds of the country designation. 

(c) This epistle was written somewhere in proximity to the 
place where Timothy suffered imprisonment. To the author’s 
mind, this was Rome. The latest information we have concerning 
him, prior to the writing of this epistle, he was at Ephesus and 
about to journey to the imperial city. The next mention we have 
of him, in Sacred Writ or elsewhere, is in Hebrews xiii :23, “Know 
ye that our brother Timothy hath been set at liberty.” Com- 
mentators are agreed that the Second Epistle to Timothy was 
written but a short time before Paul’s martyrdom—about 68 A. p. 


DURING INAUGURATION OF CHRISTIANITY 193 


As the contents show, the Epistle to the Hebrews was written 
between 67 and 70 a.p. Under these circumstances Timothy’s 
imprisonment at Rome seems well-nigh established. The fact that 
the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews had early knowledge 
of his release would indicate proximity to the place of his con- 
finement. 

As to the destination of this epistle, the following facts merit 
consideration : 

(1) Disciples at Ephesus were not in the throes of persecution 
as were the believers at Rome. In the latter city they were “sewn 
up in skins of wild animals, they were cast out to be devoured 
by dogs; others were crucified, or wrapt in tow and besmeared 
with pitch, they were fixed on sharp spikes in the imperial gar- 
dens, where the people gathered to behold gorgeous spectacles, 
and set on fire to lighten up the night.” In Hebrews xii:4, we 
read: “Ye have not yet resisted unto blood.” Certainly this could 
not be said of the Christians at Rome. Professor Harnack would 
escape the difficulty by maintaining that the epistle was addressed 
“not to the church, but to the inner circle’ (Rom. xvi:5). We 
can scarcely believe that an epistle, declared by eminent scholars 
to be “unparalleled in content and preéminent in composition,” 
was addressed to a handful of believers. 

Christians at Ephesus, as elsewhere, were subjected to an- 
noyances; were “made a gazing stock both by reproaches and 
afflictions,’ but it is not recorded that they “resisted unto blood.” 
In the Epistle to the Ephesians, in The Acts of the Apostles, 
nor in the Apocalyptic message to this church, is there mention of 
martyrdoms, or orgies of blood. MHistorians inform us that dur- 
ing the Neronian period, persecutions “seem to have been limited 
to Rome, and to have ended with his death.” 

(2) In Hebrews v:11, 12, we find this record: “Ye are become 
dull of hearing. For when by reason of the time ye ought to be 
teachers, ye have need again that some one teach you the rudiments 
of the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such 
as have need of milk, and not of solid food.” In the Epistle to 
the Romans, xv:14, we have this commendation from the pen of 
the Apostle Paul: “I myself also am persuaded of you brethren, 


194 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


that ye yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, 
able also to admonish one another.” Evidently these two epistles 
were not addressed to the same body of believers. 

“By reason of the time ye ought to be teachers.’’ The Apostle 
Paul spent three years in Ephesus—a longer period than with any 
other church, with the possible exception of Antioch. This city 
was also the center of Timothy’s activities. Priscilla and Aquila 
labored here, and it may be, for a time, Apollos. The saints 
at Ephesus were favored above the average both as to the time 
and the teachers allotted them. 

(3) We will not enter into the modern controversy as to 
whether this Epistle was addressed to Jews or Gentiles. As 
to the traditional superscription, “To the Hebrews,’ Dr. Andrew 
C. Zenos, Professor of Biblical Theology, McCormick Theological 
Seminary, says: “It is undeniable that this title formed no part 
of the original writing.”” We only note that the Jewish population 
at Ephesus was considerable. The Apostle Paul began and con- 
tinued his work of evangelism in the synagogue, “But when some 
were hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the Way before 
the multitude, he departed from them, and separated the disciples, 
reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus. And this continued 
for the space of two years; so that all they that dwelt in Asia 
heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks” (Acts xix:9, 
IO). 

(4) Another important fact determines us in our conclusion that 
the destination of this Epistle was Ephesus. In the thirteenth 
chapter and twenty-third verse, we read: “Know ye that our 
brother Timothy hath been set at liberty; with whom, if he come 
shortly, I will see you.” Here we find that this released prisoner 
was about to journey to the city or community to which this 
epistle was addressed. Timothy was a man of “often infirmities” ; 
his incarceration was not conductive to health. Released from 
confinement, where, in his debilitated condition, would he be likely 
to go? Would he not, in the very nature of the case, seek the 
solace of friends? For years he had been in intimate association 
with the saints at Ephesus. When Paul was on his third mis- 
sionary journey, Timothy accompanied him to this city. He 


DURING INAUGURATION OF CHRISTIANITY 195 


continued here, with occasional visits to other churches, during 
the Apostle’s three years of strenuous labor. He was of “them 
that ministered unto him” (Acts xix:22). He was placed in 
superintendency when Paul departed into Macedonia (I Tim. i:3). 
He was at Ephesus when he received the last letter from the 
Apostle—importuning him to “give diligence to come shortly.” 

It seems to the author of this volume that, released from de- 
bilitating confinement, impulse and sober judgment would prompt 
Timothy to return to the friends among whom he had labored 
so long and zealously. Judging from The Acts, and from 
the Pauline Epistles, more of his time and effort had been devoted 
to the “saints at Ephesus” than to any other church within his 
compass. The tradition is that he was overseer of this congrega- 
tion till his death. 

If the facts adduced substantiate, or even render probable, our 
supposition that the Epistle to the Hebrews was addressed to 
the Christian community at Ephesus, then we must, as is shown 
by xiii:19, find its author among the residents of that city. 

Who were the prominent characters in the church at Ephesus? 
We are dependent on the New Testament record for our answer. 
We give them in their order: Paul, Timothy, Priscilla, Aquila. 
To this list some would add Apollos. We might also mention 
two eminent men who, at least for a period, resided in this city 
—Mark and Luke. Let us consider each in relation to the author- 
ship of this Epistle. 


I. PAUL. 

We may almost say that the consensus of modern scholarship 
rejects him. There is so much in the Epistle inharmonious with 
the Pauline style of writing, the arrangement of contents, the 
language employed, the rhythm and classical Greek, all differentiate 
this letter from the Apostle’s accredited epistles. So much has 
been written in disproof of the Pauline authorship that it is 





1 We must fix the destination of this epistle within the Pauline area in 
order to allow for a visit from Timothy in his enfeebled condition. 

Rome is out of the question. If his imprisonment was elsewhere, there 
is no probability on release from prison he would visit this city—in the 
turmoil of persecution—to coeur ate 


196 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


impossible to reproduce it even in summary, here. We refer the 
reader to the many treatises that have been published on this 
subject. 


2. TIMOTHY. 
Hebrews xiii:23 proves beyond question that he was not the 
author of this Epistle. 


3. MARK. 

John Mark has been suggested as the possible writer of this 
letter. He was at Ephesus when Timothy received his Second 
Epistle, in which Paul charged him to bring Mark with him to 
Rome. This counts in the evangelist’s favor, but there is coun- 
teracting testimony. We have Mark’s Gospel with which to make 
comparison. This negatives any claim that can be made in his 
behalf as the possible author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
There is noticeable contrast between the two writings; the 
Markian characteristics are wanting in the latter. Take for ex- 


ample his frequent use of the word “straitway” (<00t¢). It oc- 
curs forty times in his Gospel—twenty-nine times in the first six 
chapters. It is not found in The Epistle to the Hebrews. Other 
distinguishing features are wanting. The contrast in composition 
is sO apparent that he has but few supporters. 


4. LUKE. 

He was with Paul during the last months of his imprisonment 
(II Tim. iv:11). While he is nowhere mentioned in connection 
with the work at Ephesus, the fact that he was Paul’s traveling 
companion, and his biographer, allows for the assumption that 
he was with him during his three years’ ministry in that city. As 
to his authorship of The Epistle to the Hebrews, the same ob- 
jection applies as in the case of Mark, wiz., the difference in the 
style of writing. We have Luke’s Gospel and The Acts with 
which to make comparison, and the dissimilarity is so manifest as 
to discourage effort in his behalf. 


5. APOLLOS. 
Here is one who, since the time of Luther, has received favorable 


DURING INAUGURATION OF CHRISTIANITY 197 


consideration. Modern scholars especially are disposed to lend 
him their support. In some respects he has advantage over others, 
but we must not overlook the fact that there are also adverse cir- 
cumstances, and they demand attention: 

With a single exception Apollos was not an outstanding char- 
acter in the Pauline churches. It is remarkable that, aside from 
the First Epistle to the Corinthians, his name appears but once 
in the Pauline writings. He is never joined with the Apostle 
in the superscriptions and never mentioned in the salutations. 
There is no. record that he was at any time his traveling com- 
panion. In all this there is proof that, apart from Corinth, his 
itinerancy was outside the Pauline area. 

Apollos came to Ephesus soon after the Apostle’s departure for 
Jerusalem. He left for Achaia before his return. The context 
seems to indicate that he was again in the city when Paul wrote 
his first letter to the Corinthians (xvi:12). Aside from these two 
occasions he is not mentioned in connection with the work at 
Ephesus. He certainly was not in the neighborhood of that city 
when the Apostle penned his Second Epistle to Timothy. Other- 
wise his name would appear in the salutations with that of “Prisca 
and Aquila, and the house of Onesiphorus.” After the reference 
in I Corinthians xvi:12, years elapse before we have further 
knowledge as to his whereabouts. Titus 11:13 he is mentioned in 
company with Zenas as on a journey to Crete. This is the only 
instance in which his name appears in the Pauline writings, out- 
side the First Epistle to the Corinthians. 

Some months after Apollos’ conversion to Christianity, and be- 
fore Paul’s return from Jerusalem, he left Ephesus and went to 
Corinth. His presence in the latter city caused commotion. He 
was a masterful dialectician, and “powerfully confuted the Jews”; 
his acceptability in the church was such as to create a party in 
his behalf, one faction saying: “I am of Paul,’ and another, 
“T, of Apollos.” The contention was such that he withdrew to 
Ephesus or its vicinity. Later when Paul “besought him much” 
to return to Corinth, “it was not at all his will” to go. Whether 
Apollos visited this church on a subsequent occasion is a matter 
for conjecture. There is no intimation of such occurrence in 


198 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. It may be that his 
high regard for the Apostle, together with his former experience 
at Corinth, induced him to stand aloof from the Pauline churches. 
He was not a schismatic, and refrained thenceforth from build- 
ing “upon another man’s foundation.” That the two were on 
friendly terms is evident in Titus 111:13, but their fields of labor 
were apart. The absence of Apollos’ name from the Pauline 
manuscripts, with the exceptions noted, is not without significance. 

A further consideration. If Apollos wrote this Epistle we must 
account for his presence in Rome at the time of writing. He is 
never mentioned, in so far as the author of this volume can 
ascertain, in connection with the Christians of that city. This 
fact militates against the claims that are made in his behalf. 


6. PRISCILLA AND AQUILA. 

We conjoin these names, not only because they were wife and 
husband, but also because they were co-laborers in the Gospel. We 
place the name of Priscilla first because this is the New Testament 
order. 

Priscilla and Aquila ranked next to Paul and Timothy in the 
church at Ephesus. When Paul departed from Corinth and em- 
barked for Syria, there accompanied him “Priscilla and Aquila 

. and they came to Ephesus, and he left them there” (Acts 
xvili:18, 19). During his brief stay in this city, Paul “entered 
into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews.” When he again 
set sail for Syria, he committed the work to Priscilla and Aquila. 
When, a year or more later he returned he found a well organized 
congregation in Ephesus (Acts xviii:27). When he wrote his 
first letter to the Corinthians from that city, he sends greetings 
from Aquila and Prisca, “with the church that is in their house” 
(I Cor. xvi:19). 

Some time after the death of Claudius—54 a.p.—Aquila and 
Priscilla returned to Rome. Later we find them again in Ephesus. 
They were in this city when Timothy received his second epistle. 
Priscilla and Aquila were important factors in the life of the 
church at Ephesus. 

But how may we allow for the presence of this couple in 


DURING INAUGURATION OF CHRISTIANITY 199 


Rome at the time the Epistle to the Hebrews was written? Cer- 
tain facts claim our attention. Aquila and Priscilla were residents 
of Ephesus when Timothy received the Apostle’s last extant 
epistle, with its harrowing information of his approaching martyr- 
dom. Ona former occasion these devoted friends had “laid down 
their own necks” in his behalf (Rom. xvi:3, 4). Timothy, ac- 
companied by Mark, hastened to Rome. Is it insupposable that 
Aquila and Priscilla went with them? It is true we have no 
record to this effect, but it is also true that no event of that 
perilous journey is recorded. 

Aside from their devotion to the Apostle Paul, there were other 
influences that would draw Priscilla and Aquila to Rome at this 
particular crisis. On two former occasions they had resided in 
that city (Acts xvili:3; Rom. xvi:3). They had a large circle 
of friends in that community. Their home at one time had been 
the place of assembly for the Christian congregation (Rom. 
xvi:3-5). Under all these circumstances a brief sojourn on their 
part would not be an unaccountable event. No individual whose 
name has been proposed as the possible author of this letter had 
greater inducements to visit Rome at this particular period than 
Aquila and Priscilla. The fact that they were with Timothy in 
Ephesus when he started on the journey strengthens the probability 
that they accompanied him. 

9g. The author of The Epistle to the Hebrews was well versed 
in Old Testament literature. How about Priscilla? For answer 
we have only to point to the fact that she was the chief expounder 
of “the way of God” unto Apollos. The teacher is supposed to 
equal if not surpass his pupil in knowledge. When Apollos came 
to Ephesus, although “he spake and taught accurately the things 
concerning Jesus,” he knew “only the baptism of John” (Acts 
Xviii:25). “When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him 
unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more ac- 
curately” (Acts xviii:26). Some months later he departed for 
Corinth. In the meantime he had made such progress in his 
knowledge of “the way of God” that on arrival in that city 
“he powerfully confuted the Jews, and that publicly, showing 
by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.” Who were his in- 


200 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


structors? Not Paul—up to this time the two had not met— 
but Priscilla and Aquila. Need we other certification of their 
knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures with their Messianic 
types and prophecies? 

10. A further test must be applied. The author of this letter 
to the Hebrews was acquainted with Philonian philosophy. One 
writer says: “The Epistle to the Hebrews differs from all other 
books in the New Testament in the representation of the Philonian 
philosophy throughout. The parallels are numerous and striking.” 
Bleek makes a list of twenty-two passages in which there is strong 
resemblance between them. This fact has induced many to 
support Apollos as the author of this Epistle. What can be 
said in favor of Priscilla at this point? We submit the following: 

In the year 40 A.D., Philo, “the great master of the Jewish- 
Alexandrian school,’ was chosen a member of the embassy sent 
to Rome in behalf of the Jews. This embassy remained in the city 
over half a year in a vain effort to secure an audience with the 
Emperor Caius Caligula. Now in all probability this embassy 
of Jews, charged with an important mission in the interests of 
their race, would, during this waiting time, be brought into close 
contact with the Jewish residents of Rome. This would afford 
Philo abundant opportunity to unfold his system of philosophy 
to his own countrymen, who in their turn would be eager to 
hear such renowned personage. All this occurred but ten years 
before the Emperor Claudius “commanded all the Jews to depart 
from Rome” (50 A.D.). 

Among the banished were Aquila and Priscilla (Acts xviii:2). 
Whether or no they resided in the city at the time of Philo’s 
visit is an open question. If so they were undoubtedly among 
his auditors. If, on the other hand, their arrival was subsequent 
to his sojourn, they could learn of his doctrines from such as had 
embraced his system of philosophy. But they had further op- 
portunity to acquaint themselves with the teachings of this cele- 
brated scholar. Apollos, the Alexandrian Jew, came to Ephesus 
during their first residence in that city. He was a “learned 
man” from the seat of Philonian philosophy. Some have gone 
so far as to adjudge him a pupil of Philo. When Priscilla and 


DURING INAUGURATION OF CHRISTIANITY 201 


Aquila heard him discoursing in the synagogue, they perceived 
his imperfect knowledge of the Christian doctrine, and “they took 
him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more - 
accurately.” The phrase “they took him unto them” may import 
more than a casual reader discerns. We have a similar expression 
(Acts xviii:3). It is said of Paul: “And he came unto them; 
and ... he abode with them.” Orientals were noted for their 
hospitality, and the clause “they took him unto them’ may signify 
that Apollos was invited into their home as a guest. Whether 
this be the case or not, those months of intimate association as 
teachers and disciple allowed for frequent interchange of thought 
on the merits of Philonian philosophy. 

11. The author of The Epistle to the Hebrews was within 
the inner Pauline circle, and attached to Pauline theology. For 
months the Apostle was an inmate of the home of Aquila and 
Priscilla at Corinth (Acts xviii:2, 3,6). They were his traveling 
companions (Acts xviii:18). He calls them “fellow-workers” 
(Rom. xvi:3). He sends them greetings (Rom. xvi:3, II Tim. 
iv:19). In writing Priscilla’s name, the Apostle always uses 
the diminutive form “Prisca.” This was a home address and 
signified intimate friendship. The affectionate regard the Apostle 
manifested toward this couple was reciprocated. For his sake 
they “laid down their own necks” (Rom. xvi:4). That Priscilla 
and Aquila were attached to Pauline theology is quite evident 
from the fact that the Apostle names them as “fellow-workers,” 
and their field of labor was within the Pauline churches. 

12. A scholar of marked ability and attainment. Of the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, Origen said: “The thoughts are wonderful, and 
not second to the acknowledged writings of Paul.’ Luther said: 
“Tt certainly is a wonderous fine epistle, which speaks in a mas- 
terly and solid way of the priesthood of Christ, and finely and 
fully expounds the Old Testament.” Of modern commentators, 
Edwards estimates it as “one of the greatest and most difficult 
books of the New Testament.” Dr. Philip Schaff eulogizes thus: 
“Tt is full of Pentecostal inspiration. Traceable to no Apostle, it 
teaches, exhorts, and warns with apostolic authority and power.” 
Delitzsch says: “The Epistle to the Hebrews has not its like 


202 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


among the epistles of the New Testament.” Prof. D. A. Hayes 
says: “The most important single Epistle in the New Testament. 
. . . Distinguished by brilliant eloquence and euphonious rhythm.” 

Probably no epistle in the Scriptures has received so much 
laudation as this letter to the Hebrews. Now is it for a moment 
conceivable that a woman could be its author? ‘This question has 
been answered both in the affirmative and the negative. Dr. 
Adolph Harnack, one of the greatest scholars of the age, declares 
his belief that the Epistle to Hebrews was written by Priscilla. 
Moulton, Schiele, Peake, and Rendel Harris also incline to this 
view. Dr. D. A. Hayes, of Garret Biblical Institute, answers in 
the negative. He says: “We are disposed to doubt whether either 
Priscilla or her husband had sufficient culture to compose this 
Epistle, and we are disposed to question whether any woman in 
the Pauline circle would either have assumed or have been granted 
such a position of authority in the church as the author of this 
Epistle held” (The New Testament Epistles, p. 59). 

The last writer produces no proof whatever. He offers instead 
a gratuitous assumption. He is “disposed to doubt’; he is “dis- 
posed to question,” and this uncertain state of mind constitutes 
his argument. | 

As to Priscilla’s mentality and scholarly attainments, we point 
again to the fact that she was the chief instructor of Apollos; 
that she not only taught, but “expounded” Scripture to this man 
of cultured intellect. There is another matter to which the 
author of this volume attaches weight, viz., the placing, both by 
Paul and Luke, of Priscilla’s name before that of her husband’s. 
This is not a triviality. It has import. Aside from the matriarchy, 
and within the ranks of royalty, “since the world began it hath 
not been heard,” in so far as we know, except in the case before 
us, that a wife’s name should precede her husband’s. In every 
age and clime conventionality has decreed otherwise. Even at the 
present time, when sex prejudice is disappearing fast, a reversal 
of the usual order would cause surprise, and in all probabilty, un- 
favorable comment. In the Pauline age, women in general were 
known in their relation to some man, e. g., “Mary the mother of 
James the less and of Joses” (Mark xv:40). “The mother of 


DURING INAUGURATION OF CHRISTIANITY 203 


Zebedee’s children” (Matt. xxvii:56). “Joanna, the wife of Chu- 
zas, Herod’s steward” (Luke viii:3), e¢ al. 

If such be the case, how can we account for this remarkable 
innovation on the part of Paul and Luke, otherwise than to hold 
it a recognition of the super-ability of Priscilla? Not that her 
husband was mediocre—he was not. He was Paul’s “fellow- 
worker,” and one of Apollos’ instructors—but his wife was a 
woman of extraordinary endowment. 

Jerome (350-390 A.bD.) wrote a biographical work on the pre- 
eminent Christian women of his age. Among his contemporaries 
he names Marcella, who publicly preached the Gospel in Rome. 
He pays her this tribute: “All that I learnt with great study and 
long meditation, the blessed Marcella learnt also, but with great 
facility, and without giving up any of her other occupations, or 
neglecting any of her pursuits.” He adds: “Rome became Jeru- 
salem under the influence of Marcella.” He relates how diff- 
culties in translation were submitted to her, “and always we had 
reason to admire the correctness of her decision.” He writes of 
Paula (Vidua), a famous Hebrew scholar, and confesses that to 
her he referred the most difficult portions of his commentary on 
Ezekiel. He lauds Demetria as a “prodigy of sanctity’; and 
Fabiola as “the wonder of the ages.” He names other women, 
and declares that their fame can never perish. 

A like character was Priscilla. Tertullias records: “By the 
holy Prisca, the Gospel is preached.” Her fame was such that 
one of the oldest catacombs of Rome—the Coemeterium Priscil- 
lae, outside the Porta Salaria—was named in her honor. A church 
—“‘Titulus St. Prisca’’—was erected on the Aventine. It bore 
this inscription from the fourth to the eighth century. Later, 
Pope Leo III (795-816) ordered a change. Thenceforth it bore 
the name “Titulus Aquilae et Prisca.’ The name of Prisca is 
often met with in the monuments of Rome. There was a legendary 
writing known as “Acts of St. Prisca,” extant in the tenth cen- 
tury. A. C. Headlam says: “Prisca, in some way or other, oc- 
cupied a prominent position in the Roman church”; and again: 
“The traditions of the Roman church, where the name of Prisca 


204 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


was of considerable importance, suggests the possibility of some 
interesting discoveries being made.” 

It was facts such as these, and maybe others yet unknown, that 
induced the Apostle Paul and the Evangelist Luke, to disregard the 
conventionalities of their own, preceding and succeeding ages, 
and four times out of six to place Priscilla’s name before her 
husband’s, 

13. We come now to our final test. The author of The 
Epistle to the Hebrews was an individual of prominence and 
authority in the Primitive church. This would certainly apply to 
Priscilla as has already been shown. She was one of Paul’s 
co-laborers in the Gospel (Rom. xvi:3). She was known to “all 
the churches of the Gentiles” (Rom. xvi:4). In both Ephesus 
and Rome the home of Aquila and Priscilla was the assembly 
place for a Christian congregation. 

It can scarcely be expected that we would close this discus- 
sion without reference to the fact that The Epistle to the 
Hebrews is anonymous. Prof. O. V. Harnack characterizes 
this as “an amazing fact.” Prof. D. A. Hayes says: “This 
is one of the strangest facts in all literature, that the author of so 
important a document as this should have left no trace of his name 
upon church history.” ... “It is strange enough that any epistle 
in the New Testament should be anonymous, but that this master- 
piece among the epistles should be anonymous seems doubly 
strange.” Almost every writer on this subject has commented 
on the unaccountability of this disappearance. No reason can 
be assigned. Explanations have been attempted, but their weak- 
ness is excusable only on the plea that there is nothing stronger 
to offer. One writer who champions the authorship of the 
Apostle Paul attributes the absence of his name to modesty on 
his part. But why more modest here than in his thirteen acknowl- 
edged epistles? In II Thess. iii:17 we read: “The salutation of 
me Paul with my own hand, which is the token in every epistle.” 
“In every epistle.’ Did the Apostle subsequently discontinue the 
signing of his letters, or was the Epistle to the Hebrews an ex- 
ception? Another explains the absence of the author’s name, 
whoever he be, on the ground that he was so well known that 


DURING INAUGURATION OF CHRISTIANITY 205 


his signature was unnecessary. Was he better known than Paul, 
Peter, John, Jude, Luke and Mark, who attached their names 
to authenticate their writings? 

In every case where a man has been proposed as the author, 
the anonymity of this Epistle is inexplicable. 

It is otherwise with Priscilla. The absence of the name of the 
writer is a strong argument in her favor. The expurgation can 
easily be accounted for if she, or any other: woman, was the 
author. In the language of Dr. Ramsay: “The universal and 
Catholic type of Christianity became confirmed in its dislike of 
the prominence and public ministrations of women. This dislike 
became abhorrence, and there is every probability that the dislike 
is as old as the first century, and was intensified to abhorrence 
before the middle of the second century.” 

Dr. Gore, commenting on the Epistle to the Ephesians, p. 228, 
says: 


“In the early Christian church the influence of women was put 
to far nobler uses than in Asiatic cities. . . . In other parts of the 
Empire the women of the Christian Church were conspicuously in 
advance of those outside. In somewhat later days of the church 
there was some resentment at the high and free position assigned 
to women in the New Testament documents. Thus one celebrated 
MS. of the New Testament—the codex Bezee—changes ‘not a few 
of the honorable Greek women and men’ (Acts xvii:12) into ‘of 
the Greeks and the honorable, many men and women.’ In xvii:34 
it cuts out “‘Damaris,’ and in xvii:4 it changes the ‘leading women,’ 
into ‘wives of the leading men.’ The spirit which prompted these 
changes in an early Christian scribe and reviser has not been 
wanting in much later ages, though it had not a chance of tamper- 
ing with our sacred text.” 


The prejudice that scrupled not to mutilate the New Testament 
manuscripts; to wrest Scripture to express thought foreign to 
the mind of the inspired writer; to change feminine names into 
masculine, as in Romans xvi:7, and Colossians iv:5; to reverse 
the order where the feminine preceded the masculine as in Acts 
xvili:26 (A. V.)—a prejudice which would do this and much 


206 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


more would not hesitate to expurgate the name of Priscilla, or that 
of any other woman, from The Epistle to the Hebrews. 

The author of this volume does not claim that the data sub- 
mitted in this discussion aggregate a certainty as to the author of 
this Epistle—that can only be determined when archeologists have 
unearthed further treasure-tombs of the by-gone ages—but does 
insist that they constitute an array of circumstantial evidence that 
may not be brushed aside with the depreciatory comment: “We 
are disposed to question whether any woman in the Pauline circle 
would either have assumed, or have been granted such a position 
of authority in the church as the author of this Epistle held.” 

Never in the history of the Christian church did woman hold 
such high position, or take such prominent part in the propaga- 
tion of the Gospel as in the Apostolic age. It was only as the hier- 
archy gained in power that she was relegated to the background. 


Xx 
PETRINE (PREGERTS 


laid down rules and regulations concerning women— 

the Apostles Peter and Paul. The former is very brief 
in his treatment of the subject—seven verses of his First Epistle 
comprising all he has to say relative to the matter. The Pauline 
code is more extended and has to do with the domestic as well as 
the ecclesiastical status of woman. 

In the present chapter we confine ourselves to a study of the 
Apostle Peter’s teachings affecting the relationship of wife and 
husband. 

A critical review of any epistle requires first of all that it be 
placed in its proper setting. Certain matters must be brought into 
consideration: (a) The time of writing. (b) The persons ad- 
dressed. (c) General and local conditions. These all have a 
bearing on the contents, and ignorance here may invalidate our 
exegesis and lead to false conclusions. 

When Christ commissioned the Twelve to go forth and preach 
“to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,’ He charged them, say- 
ing: “Get you no gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses; no 
wallet for your journey; neither two coats, nor shoes; nor staff; 
for the laborer is worthy his food” (Matt. x:9, 10). When He 
sent forth the Seventy, He said to them: “Carry no purse, no 
wallet, no shoes: and salute no man on the way” (Luke x:4). 

Now here are explicit commands from the highest authority; 
yet today no Home or Foreign Board attempts to carry out this 
program in the sending forth of missionaries. Why? Because 
time has wrought changes in national boundaries; in laws and 
social customs, and made it inexpedient, if not impossible, to op- 
erate along the lines of nineteen hundred years ago. The spirit of 
the command is vital today, but “the letter killeth.” The best way 

207 


() the nine authors of the New Testament, but two have 


208 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


in which to accomplish results nineteen hundred years ago may be 
the least effective in the present era, owing to the lapse of time 
and changed conditions. 

Also the persons addressed must be taken into consideration. 
Only a mental defective will hold that an athlete must regulate his 
food and exercise according to rules laid down for a weakling; 
that the curriculum of the scholar must relate to the capacity of 
the tyro: that the freeman of today must abide by an ethical code 
which bears the imprint of an autocratic age. 

“Circumstances alter cases” and at times demand a change of 
modus operandi. What is best under a given environment may be 
ill-advised under another. Martial law is a necessity in times of 
war, but an infringement of human rights when peace prevails. 
When Blackstone delivered his introductory lecture as Vinerian 
Professor at Oxford, he laid down the following rule concerning 
the interpretation of laws: “The most universal and effectual way 
of discovering the true meaning of a law, when words are dubious, 
is by considering the reason and spirit of it; or the cause which 
moved the legislator to enact it. For when this reason ceases, the 
law itself ought likewise to cease with it” (Vol. I, p. 60). 

The casuistic utterances of the Apostles were, as often as other- 
wise, inseparably bound up with existing laws and local customs. 
All this must be borne in mind when we study the epistles. We 
must give them their proper setting; we must reckon with the 
environment of those addressed. 

The First Epistle of Peter was a message to “the elect, 
sojourners of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, 
and Bithynia.” “Dispersion” was a term applied to Jews dwelling 
outside Palestine. There are passages which would indicate that 
there were also Gentile converts among the addressed (i:14, 18; 
11:10; iv:3). Such were probably proselytes to Judaism. 

The five provinces named were in Asia Minor and under Roman 
rule. 

The consensus of opinion seems to be that this Epistle was 
written at a late period in the Apostle’s life—some opine during 
the Neronian persecutions. This is disputed by the Tiibingen 
school. 


PETRINE PRECEPTS 209 


The Epistle, in the main, is hortatory. There are continual ref- 
erences to trials. Dr. Gloag says: ‘““The time was come when judg- 
ment must begin at the house of God (iv:17). Christians were 
exposed to false accusations as malefactors (i1i1:16). They were 
liable to be dragged before heathen tribunals; they were called 
upon to give an answer (éroAoyta) for their faith (iii:15). They 
were reproached for the name of Christ, and were made par- 
takers with Him in His sufferings (iv:13, 14). Their Christianity 
was regarded as a crime” (iv:16). 

If the storm had not already broken, its mutterings were heard. 
On every hand were portents of woe. The mind of the author 
of this Epistle was filled with foreboding. A few leagues beyond 
stood the cross on which Himself would be crucified; the converts 
He addressed were passing through “fiery trial” (iv:12). The 
Apostle exhorts them to be “steadfast in the faith” (v:9) ; to com- 
mit their “souls in well-doing unto a faithful Creator” (iv:19g) ; 
he points to the sufferings of Christ, and entreats them to be 
armed “with the same mind” (iv:1); he enjoins them to lead ex- 
emplary lives, in order that their revilers may be put to confusion 
(111:16) ; he admonishes them to “be subject to every ordinance of 
man for the Lord’s sake” (ii:13), and adds, ‘For so is the will 
of God, that by well-doing ye should put to silence the ignorance 
of foolish men” (ii:15) ; he charges household servants to regard 
the will of their masters (11:18); he appeals to wives to be 
deferential to their husbands (i11:1) and to husbands “in like 
manner” to dwell with their wives “according to knowledge” 
(11:7) ; he lays it upon the younger to be “subject unto the elder” 
(v:5) ; and finally he importunes all—master and servant, husband 
and wife; old and young—to “gird” themselves—as the slave 
girded himself with a white scarf or apron—“with humility to 
serve one another” (v:5); and all this “for the Lord’s sake” 
(11:13), “having a good conscience” that wherein they “were 
spoken against” their revilers might be “put to shame” by their 
“good manner of life in Christ” (iii:16). 

One of the charges brought against primitive Christianity, and 
which served as a cause for persecution, was that it taught wives 
to be disrespectful to their husbands, servants to rebel against 


210 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


their masters, and children to disobey parents. Adherents were stig- 


matized as “busy-bodiesin other men’s matters” (dot etentoxor0<) 
There is reference to this charge in the Epistle, iv:15, “Let none 
of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or an evil-doer, or as 
a meddler in other men’s matters.” The Apostle was concerned 
that they “abstain from all appearance of evil,’ that by well- 
ordered lives they “put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.” 
It was a time of exigency; persecution was even now active or 
impending, and he would “cut off occasion” from them which 
desired occasion. 

Another fact that must be reckoned with was the laws under 
which these converts were living. The Patria Potestas regulated 
every Roman household. Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and 
Bithynia were conquered provinces and governed by Roman en- 
actments. The Patria Potestas conferred on the father auto- 
cratic power over his dependents and descendants. He had life 
and death authority. He could inflict any punishment he willed 
on his slaves: “Under Roman law a man could kill his slave as 
he would kill a dog. One Roman nobleman used to cut up such of 
his slaves as broke dishes, and fed them to the lampreys in his 
pond. The slave had no protection whatever against his master’s 
avarice, anger, or lust.” “If a master was killed in his house, 
all the slaves could be put to death” (“The Wonderful Law,” p. 
67.) ‘Tacitus, in his “Annals,” xii:42, relates how a bondservant, 
under great provocation, slew his master. The matter came be- 
fore the Senate. Cassius, the Stoic, defended the law, and six 
hundred slaves, all innocent, were put to death by order of the 
Roman Senate, to expiate the crime. 

By a constitution of Antoninus Pius (86-161 a.p.) the condi- 
tion of the slave was somewhat ameliorated. He could flee for 
refuge to the temple or to a statue of the emperor. If on in- 
vestigation it was shown that the master had used unrestrained 
violence, he could be compelled to sell his slave on equitable 
terms. 

The Patria Potestas conferred on the father life and death power 
over his descendants. In the “Institutes of Justinian,” Book i:ix, 
we read: “No other people have a power over their children such 


PETRINE PRECEPTS 211 


as we have over ours.” ... “The child born to you and your 
wife is in your power. And so is the child born to your son of 
his wife, that is, your grandson or granddaughter; so are your 
great-grandchildren, and all your other descendants. But a child 
born to your daughter is not in your power, but in the power of 
its own father.” 

A Roman father could put his son to death or sell him into 
slavery. He could do the same with his son’s wife and children, 
and even grandchildren. According to the “Institutes of Justinian,” 
“children, natural or adoptive, have almost no means of com- 
pelling their parents to free them from their power” (Book I, 
sec. xii). The “Institutes of Justinian’ (527-565 A.D.) were 
declared to be.a mollification of previous law. The father had the 
legal right “During their whole life to imprison, scourge, keep to 
rustic labor in chains, to sell or slay, even though they may be in 
the enjoyment of high state officer” (Ortolan’s “History of Roman 
Law,’ p. 107). “If a father granted freedom to his son, that son 
was no longer a member of his family” (Eliza Burt Gamble— 
“The Sexes in Science and History,” p. 190). 

In order to bring the wife under the absolute power of her 
husband, she was held in law to be his daughter. Henry Summer 
Maine—Member of the Supreme Council of India and Regius 
Professor of Civil Law in the University of Cambridge, writing 
on this subject, says: 


“Anciently, there were three modes in which marriage might 
be contracted according to Roman usage, one involving a religious 
solemnity, the other two the observance of certain secular for- 
malities. By the religious marriage, or Confarreation; by the 
higher form of civil marriage, which was called Coemption; by 
the lower form which was termed Usus, the husband acquired a 
number of rights over the person and property of his wife, which 
were on the whole in excess of such as are conferred on him in any 
system of modern jurisprudence. But in what capacity did he ac- 
quire them? Not as husband, but as father. By Confarreation, 
Coemption, and Usus, the woman passed in manum viri—that is, in 
law she became the daughter of her husband. She was included 
in his Patria Potestas. She incurred all the liabilities springing 


212 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


out of it while it subsisted and surviving it when it expired. All 
her property became absolutely his and she was retained in tutelage 
after his death to the guardian whom he appointed by will.” 


Letourneau, General Secretary to the Anthropological Society 
of Paris, and Professor in the School of Anthropology, in his 
“Evolution of Marriage,” p. 201, says: 


“To the Potestas of the father succeeded the Manus of the hus- 
band.” “The terrible right of Manus was acquired by the husband 
with every form of marriage.” “The Manus invested the husband 
with a large right of correction over his wife, though in very 
grave cases he was to assemble the family tribunal, which included 
the children of cousins-german. These family tribunals took 
cognizance even of murder committed by the wife, and they were 
still in use under the emperors. On the other hand, the Roman 
husbands did not let their legal right of beating their wives fall 
into desuetude, for Saint Monica consoled the wives of her ac- 
quaintance, whose faces showed marks of marital brutality, by 
saying to them: ‘It is the duty of servants to obey their masters 
. . . you have made a contract of servitude.’ ” 


St. Monica reminded these abused wives that they had made 
“a contract of servitude.’ In the “Evolution of Marriage,” by 
Letourneau, pp. 198, 199, we read: 


“Marriage of children, especially little girls, was the rule at 
Rome, since the nuptial majority of girls was fixed at twelve years, 
but they were often betrothed, even married, before that age.” 
... The wife was still such a child that on the day of her wed- 
ding she took ceremonious leave of her playthings and dolls, offer- 
ing them up to the gods.” Who today would hold that a child of 
such age, under the coercive Patria Potestas, could make a “‘con- 
tract’? 


Now the First Epistle of Peter was addressed to converts 
facing, or already in the throes of persecution. Chapter iii:1-6 was 
an appeal to wives living in five Roman provinces and under the 
Patria Potestas and Manus Viri. Under the circumstances, the 


PETRINE PRECEPTS 213 


Apostle offered the only wise counsel—submission. Resistance 
could avail them nothing; contrariwise, it would fan the fires of 
persecution. He would spare them, so he entreats them to be 
“subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake’”—servants 
to their masters—‘“‘not only to the good and gentle, but also to the 
froward” ; wives in like manner to their own husbands “that even 
if any obey not the word, they may without the word be gained 
by the behavior of their wives”; likewise the younger to “be sub- 
ject to the elder.” 

The marvel is not that the Apostle, under such circumstances, 
offered the foregoing counsel—he could scarce do otherwise— 
the astounding feature is that down through the centuries legis- 
lators have endeavored to hold wives in the terrible bondage of 
the Patria Potestas and Manus Viri; and that Christian clerics 
have labored assiduously to impress on the mind of womankind 
that such was the will of God concerning them. Time came when 
public sentiment demanded a majority age for the son; Christian 
civilization decreed the manumission of the slave; but to the pres- 
ent hour, common and canonical law hold that a wife can never 
be emancipated from the control of her husband. Hers must be 
a perpetual tutelage. 

A third fact that must come under review in our study of these 
Apostolic injunctions is the representative character of the Roman 
father and husband. While the Patria Potestas conferred such 
despotic power, it also imposed responsibility. The father was 
held accountable for the acts of his descendants. Theodore W. 
Dwight, Professor of Law at Columbia College, New York, says: 
“The power of the father imposed upon him a corresponding duty. 
He was liable for the wrongful acts of his son while under power. 
He had a representative ownership.” 

The same was true as regards the wife. Her legal status was 
that of daughter of her husband. She was included in his Patria 
Potestas. She was rated as his property, but his ownership was 
representative. He was chargeable for her offenses, both civil and 
criminal. In the eyes of the law she was a minor. 

Now to be made liable for the overt acts of another in equity 
demands that the person held accountable be invested with power 


214 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


to restrain. So with these husbands. If they must answer for 
the conduct of their wives, justice required that they also have 
some right of supervision. 

In the foregoing facts, and in these alone, we have the explana- 
tion—the why and wherefore—of the Apostle’s entreaty to Chris- 
tian wives, resident in the five named provinces of Asia Minor, 
to submit themselves to their husbands. 

The author is well aware that this view is not in accord with 
that of the generality of commentators. Down through the cen- 
turies redactors, especially of the older school, have maintained 
that I Peter iii:1-6 was an iteration of the Divine purpose con- 
cerning woman; a reannouncement of a basic principle—rooted 
and grounded in elemental law. 

So much is involved in the proper determination of this ques- 
tion that we pause and ask these exponents of the Divine will to 
give us some assurance. The following is what they offer: 

First: They point with confidence to the priority of man’s 
creation. Here they find incontestable proof that God “From 
the beginning” decreed his supremacy over woman. 

Second: In the marked distinction accorded Adam in the naming 
of the brute creation there is further certification of his lordship. 

Third: That overworked passage—Genesis i11:16—is requisi- 
tioned to prove that the Almighty imposed a curse on womankind 
because of Eve’s initiatory part in the transgression. Even such 
as concede the equality of the sexes at creation hold Genesis iii:16 
to be a decree of divestment. 

All these claims have been considered, and, we trust, refuted, 
in the first three chapters of this volume. There is no need for 
repetition here. 

In the foregoing array of arguments we have the substructure 
on which redactors build their claim that I Peter iii:1-6 is applicable 
to wives of all generations and under all circumstances. 

We challenge this conclusion. It rests on an insecure founda- 
tion. It sets at naught Genesis i:26-28. It contravenes the Divine 
plan. 

Furthermore, proponents of this doctrine place themselves in 
conflict with the Apostle Peter. It is reasonable to assume that 


PETRINE PRECEPTS 215 


the author of an epistle is the best authority on the matter of 
address. He knows, better than others, to whom he writes. Now 
expositors in general have regarded the First Epistle of Peter 
as an encyclical letter to Christian believers in general. It is fre- 
quently referred to as “The First Epistle General of Peter.” We 
have the Apostle’s word to the contrary. The superscription 
reads: “Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect who are 
sojourners of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, 
and Bithynia.” There is nothing ambiguous here. The statement 
is plain, definite, and should be decisive. We have no right to 
assume that the Apostle misdirected this Epistle. He knew what 
he was doing, and we tamper when we add to, or take from this 
superscription. The Second Epistle of Peter was general; ad- 
dressed “to them that have obtained a like precious faith with us 
in the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ.’’ This 
makes it an encyclical letter to the entire body of believers. Not 
so the First Epistle; it is restricted “to the elect who are sojourners 
of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and 
Bithynia,.” 

Another fact that must not be overlooked is this: While exposi- 
tors have strenuously maintained that I Peter iii:1-6 is grounded 
on a primal decree of the Almighty, or have sought to rivet it to 
Genesis 111:16,—“Thy desire shall be unto thy husband and he 
shall rule over thee,’—the Apostle himself has nothing to say along 
this line. He makes no mention of such decree; there is no refer- 
ence, on his part, to Eve’s transgression. Expositors have deemed 
the relation of these two passages a matter of vital importance; 
they have kept it in the forefront; they have passed it on from 
generation to generation, but the Apostle Peter, in penning this 
message to these wives of Asia Minor, neglected to enlighten them 
as to the basal principle—according to these commentators—on 
which his exhortation is founded. 

This silence on the part of the Apostle leaves room for question. 
One begins to query if, after all, these interpreters of Scripture 
may not be in error; if their claim be aught else than gratuitous 
assumption. ; 

A careful review of the First Epistle of Peter shows beyond 


216 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


peradventure that the Apostle’s plea is grounded solely on. “the 
present distress.” He minds these converts of “the fiery trial” 
that is come upon them to prove them; that they are now “put to 
grief in manifold temptations” ; that their enemies are on the alert; 
that they are under surveillance; he stresses the need of caution 
and urges “that by well-doing” they “put to silence the ignorance 
of foolish men”; he assures afflicted servants, suffering wrong- 
fully, of a “recompense of reward”; he enheartens wives in bond- 
age under the Patria Potestas and Manus Viri with a hope of 
leading unbelieving husbands into an acceptance of “the truth 
as it is in Jesus.” Not a word about the Creation and the Fall: 
he makes no mention of generations to come. He is dealing with 
“the present distress” and counseling these converts how to meet 
it. He incites and encourages them to faithfulness by the example 
of Christ and the promise of eternal reward. 

There is a further fact that must be reckoned with. If, as 
commentators of the older school have held, I Peter iii:1-6 is bind- 
ing on subsequent generations; if it is an entailment, then we must 
face the fact that I Peter 11:13, and 11:18, are entailments also. 
We cannot generalize the one and restrict the others as to time 
and place. We cannot abjure the “divine right of kings” and hold 
to the “divine right” of husbands; we cannot manumit the slave 
and drive an awl through the ear of the wife. The same hand 
that wrote: “Wives be in subjection to your own husbands,” wrote 
also: “Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, 
whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto governors as sent 
by him.” “Fear God, Honor the king.” “Servants be in sub- 
jection to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and 
gentle, but also to the froward. For this is acceptable, if for con- 
science toward God a man endureth griefs, suffering wrongfully.” 
If the Apostle Peter wrote, not only for his own generation and to 
meet an emergency, but for all time regardless of circumstances, 
then rebellion against despotic government is revolt against God, 
and all anti-slavery agitation is contravention of the Divine will. 

Down through the centuries despots and their supporters have 
wrested passages such as these from their contexts, and used them 


PETRINE PRECEPTS 217 


to suppress the right of the individual in the home, church, and 
state. 
We come now to the text, I Peter iti:1-6, “In like manner 


(6u0tws) ye wives be in subjection (drotaccéuevoat) to your own 


husbands; that if any obey (éxe:Ootdctv) not the word, they may 
without the word be gained by the behavior of their wives; be- 
holding your chaste behavior with fear. Whose adorning let it 
not be the outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing 
jewels of gold, or of putting on apparel; but the hidden man of 
the heart, in the incorruptible apparel of a meek and quiet spirit, 
which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner 
aforetime the holy women also, who hoped in God, adorned them- 
selves, being in subjection to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed 


(Sxnxovev) Abraham, calling him lord: (xdprov) whose children 
ye now are, if ye do well, and are not put in fear by any terror.” 

The introductory word—éwotwc—rendered, “in like manner,” 
or “likewise,” associates this passage with something that precedes 
—either ii:13 or 11:18. If to the former, the reading would be: 
“Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake... . 
In like manner wives submit yourselves to your own husbands.” 
In this relation, the import of the injunction would be, that as 
subjects of the state, these converts should submit to the laws of 
the government—even though such laws be harsh and oppressive. 
They should do this “for the Lord’s sake’—for the honor and 
advancement of Christ’s kingdom. Even so, “in like manner” and 
for the same reason, wives are enjoined to submit themselves unto 
their own husbands. The law of the government under which they 
lived placed them in subordinate relation—Submit “for the Lord’s 
sake,” and the Apostle adds further incentive—the possibility of 
winning unbelieving husbands to Christ. 


If duolws relates the injunction to ii:18, we have the following : 
“Servants be in subjection to your masters with all fear; not only 
to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. . . . In like man- 
ner ye wives be in subjection to your own husbands.” “Jn like 
manner’ —that is, with the abjectness of a servant. 

It is a satisfaction to know that the majority of exegetes relate 


218 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


this passage to ii:13. However, there are exceptions. Some, 
perhaps due to their habit of thought, associate it with ii:18. We 
need to have a care here lest we involve ourselves in difficulty. 


This word 6uofws occurs in two other passages in this Epistle. 
We find it in i11:7 and v:5. Here, too, it must have an antecedent. 
If we relate iii:1 to ii:18, we cannot go further back to find an 
antecedent for iii:7. We cannot play leapfrog in exegesis. If we 
attach iii:1—“in like manner ye wives’—to ii:18—“servants be in 
subjection to your masters,” then we must find the antecedent of 
iii:7, “Ye husbands in like manner” (éyotws) in iii:t or ii:18. 
There is no escape, and in either case we have forced these husbands 
into servile relationship. “In like manner” as servants are subject 
to their masters “with all fear,’ even so are husbands to honor 
their wives “wth all fear, not only the good and gentle, but also 
the froward.” If we find the antecedent in iii1:1, we have the fol- 
lowing palatable deliverance, “in like manner ye wives’’—that is, 
in the manner of servants toward their masters—“be in subjection 
to your own husbands.” ... “Ye husbands in like manner’— 
that is, as servants toward masters—“dwell with your wives accord- 
ing to knowledge, giving honour unto the woman, as unto the 
weaker vessel, as being also joint-heirs of the grace of life.” 

We encounter a like difficulty when we come to v:5. If we 
relate i1i:1 to 11:18, then we must find the antecedent of v:5 in 
11:18, iii,:1 or iii:7. The reader may take his choice, but the author 
of this volume prefers to make ii:13 the antecedent of all these 
passages, “Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s 
sake.”” Citizens to the state, servants to masters, wives to hus- 
bands, the younger to the elder, and husbands to honor their wives, 
and to dwell with them “according to knowledge’—and all “for 
the Lord’s sake.” 


“In like manner ye wives be in subjection (Sxotaccéuevar)to your 
husbands.” A better rendering of this passage would be, “In like 
manner wives submit yourselves,” or “subject yourselves to your 
own husbands.” The Apostle uses this verb bxotécow in his in- 
junction to converts in general (ii:13); to household servants 
(41:18) ; to wives (iii:1) ; to the younger church members (v:5) ; 


PETRINE PRECEPTS 219 


but with a noticeable change of tense and voice. In ii:13 and v:5 
we find the second aorist, passive—brotaynte—“Be subject”; in 


11:18 and iii:1, the present tense and middle voice—brotaccémevat 
—“subject yourselves.” Shall we attribute this change of tense 
and voice to inadvertency on the part of the Apostle, or shall we 
conclude there is import? We must concede there is distinction 
between enforced and voluntary submission. The one implies 
external pressure, the other inward prompting. Whether the 
Apostle wrote wittingly or unwittingly, there is a difference between 


Onotaynte and brotaccéuecvat. In the first there is recognition 
of an external authority; in the second, this is absent. 


When the author of this epistle wrote: “Be subject (Sxotdynt¢), 
to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake”; also, “Likewise 


ye younger be subject (dxotéyyte) unto the elder,” therewas recog- 
nition of external authority—an authority inherent in state and 
church. It was otherwise when he addressed the wives and house- 
hold servants. He changes from the second aorist to the present 
tense and from the passive to the middle voice. There is, on the 
Apostle’s part, no acknowledgment of a master’s right to hold in 
subjection a fellow-creature, nor of a husband’s right to constrain 
his wife. The authority possessed by the master and the husband 
was not inherent, but adventitious; so the Apostle appeals to these 
wives and household servants to make, not an enforced, but volun- 
tary surrender—in the language of Phillips Brooks, to exercise 
“the higher right of giving up one’s right”—“for the Lord’s sake.” 

As further incentive to this voluntary yielding, the Apostle holds 
before the minds of these Christian wives a hope of winning unbe- 
lieving husbands to an acceptance of “The truth as it is in Jesus.” 


That even if any (tve ¢% ttves) obey not the word, they may with- 
out the word be gained by the behavior of their wives (iii:1). 
The most effective sermon is a godly life. A young man, when 
asked under whose preaching he was converted, replied, “I was con- 
verted under my uncle’s practicing.” During a revival in Chicago 
an infidel went forward for prayer. Facing the audience he said, 
“For years I have been an unbeliever, but the consistent life of 
my Christian wife has convinced me that she has something I have 


220 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


not. I want what she has, and I believe she has religion—pray 
for me,” and he knelt at the altar. Instances such as these could 
be cited by the thousands. The Apostle Peter encouraged these 
Christian wives to make personal sacrifice, to exercise “the higher 
right of giving up one’s right,” in order that they might win 
unbelieving husbands. “That even if any obey not the word, 
they may without the word be gained by the behaviour of their 
wives; beholding your chaste behaviour with fear.” 

Into this last clause translators have inserted a word not found 
in the Greek—the word “coupled,” making the passage read, “Be- 
holding your chaste behaviour coupled with fear.” This word was 
inserted to express a thought in the mind of the translators— 
namely, that the fear here spoken of was on the part of the wife. 
But this is by no means certain. The fear, or reverence, may have 
been on the part of the husband in beholding the “chaste behaviour” 
of his wife. Such effect has often been produced in the mind of 
an irreligious person when brought into association with a saintly 
individual. Stanley was awed by the godly life of Livingstone; 
a skeptic, thrown for a brief period into society with Fenelon, 
declared himself unable to remain longer without becoming a 
Christian. The passage before us, without emendation by the 
translators, reads: “Beholding your chaste behaviour with fear” 
(énontetcavtes thy év p6Bw dyviy dvactoophy budy). The ques- 
tion is—is the éxoxteUcavtes (beholding) in the sphere of fear? 
or is the &vacteogyy (behavior) in the sphere of fear? (thy éy 
goBw). The arrangement of the Greek would indicate the 
former. 

It is gratifying to know that the majority of commentators who 
attribute the fear to the wife make it the fear of God rather than 
the fear of the husband. This harmonizes the passage with the 
last clause of i11:6—“are not put in fear by any terror.” 

In the estimation of the author of this volume it would be far 
better to translate this passage as it stands in the Greek without 
emendation, which expresses only the opinion of translators. 

“Whose adorning let it not be the outward adorning of plaiting 
the hair, and of wearing jewels of gold, or of putting on apparel: 


PETRINE PRECEPTS 221 


but the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptible apparel of a 
meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price” 
(iii :3, 4). 

It is an indisputable fact that down through the ages mankind 
in general, and lawmakers and religious leaders in particular, have 
manifested lively interest in the manner and style of woman’s 
dress. On the other hand, they have shown almost no concern as 
to the apparel of their own sex. The prophet Isaiah, 700 B.c., had 
something to say on this subject. He was a habitué of a palace 
and a student of affairs about him, and left to posterity this inven- 
tory of the habiliments of the women of his age: “‘anklets,” “‘cauls,” 
“crescents,” “pendants,” ‘‘bracelets,’ “mufflers,” ‘“‘headtires,” 
“ankle-chains,”’ “sashes,” “perfume-boxes,” “amulets,” “rings,” 
“nose-jewels,’ “festival robes,” “mantles,” “shawls,” ‘‘satchels,” 
“hand-mirrors,” “fine linen,” “turbans,” “veils,” “girdles,” and 
“well-set hair” (i1i1:18-24). 

Solon, Athenian sage and lawgiver, 638 B.c., wrestled with 
the problem of woman’s attire; Marcus Porcius Cato, 234 B.c., 
harangued the Roman Senate on this weighty theme. Church 
fathers and prelates, “after the manner of men,’ made pronounce- 
ments on this grave question. The leaders of some religious sects 
have fixed the style of woman’s dress and the manner in which 
she should arrange her hair; and, in doing so, have usually suc- 
ceeded in making her appear outlandish. 

The Apostles, Paul and Peter, were not inattentive to the mat- 
ter of woman’s attire; the latter especially appreciated its impor- 
tance. A reference to iii:5 will reveal the extent of his investiga- 
tion—back to the Patriarchal age. 

“Whose adorning let it not be the outward adorning of plaiting 
the hair, and of wearing jewels of gold, or of putting on apparel” 
(11:3). This passage, like many another mandate of Scripture, 
has at times been misconstrued. Some religious sects have under- 
stood it to be a prohibition of “the plaiting of the hair, or the 
wearing jewels of gold.” Fortunately, their literalism carried 
them no further, otherwise it would have compelled them to also 
interdict the “putting on of apparel.” 

The Apostle Peter was not condemning personal adornment— 


222 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


99 66 


“the plaiting of the hair,” “the wearing jewels of gold,” or the 
arraying of one’s self in becoming attire—he was only counseling 
these Christian wives not to make these externals their main fea- 
ture of attractiveness; there was something more substantial— 
the inward charm—the charm of mind; “The hidden man of the 
heart”; “The incorruptible apparel of a meek and quiet spirit, 
which is in the sight of God of great price.” This should be their 
chief concern. 

“For after this manner aforetime the holy women also 
who hoped in God adorned themselves, subjecting themselves 


(dnotaccéuevat) to their own husbands; as Sarah obeyed Abra- 
ham, calling him lord” (iii:5, 6). 

The Apostle here sets before the mind of the readers an interest- 
ing example of conjugal fidelity—“as Sarah obeyed (bxxovev) 


Abraham, calling him lord” (xJUetoy). 
The word rendered in this passage “obey” is the Greek word 


btaxotw. Its primary definition is “to listen, hearken’” (Thayer’s 
“Greek-English Lexicon,” p. 638). Of the noun dxaxoq formed 


from this verb Uraxobw, the same lexicographer says: “The word 
is not found in profane authors; nor in the Septuagint, except in 
I] Samuel xxi1:36 with the sense of favorable hearing; in II Sam- 
uel xxili:23 Aq. we find 6 éxt braxohy tives, Vulgate, qui alicui 
est a secretis, where it bears its primary and proper signification of 
listening.’ (Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon, p. 637.) 

If translators had adopted the primary import of Sraxobw in 
I Peter i1:6, the rendering would be—“as Sarah listened,’ or, 
“as Sarah hearkened” unto Abraham. Instead of this, they chose 
the secondary meaning, making the passage read—‘“as Sarah 
obeyed Abraham.” We turn now to Genesis xxi:12 and find this 
record: “And God said unto Abraham . . . in all that Sarah saith 
unto thee, hearken (yaw) unto her voice.” This word also has 
a primary and a derivative import—primary, “to hear,” “to 
hearken” ; derivative, “to obey” (Gesenius: “Hebrew and English 
Lexicon,” p. 1086). Yraxotdw and yw are cognates; the im- 
port of the one is the import of the other. The primary meaning 
of both is—“hearken”; the ‘derivative signification of both is 


PETRINE PRECEPTS 223 


“obey.” If the translators had passed over the primary meaning 
of the verb yow in Genesis xxi:12, and adopted the secondary, 
as in I Peter ii1:6, this passage—Genesis xxi:12—would read: 
“And God said unto Abraham... in all that Sarah saith unto 
thee, obey her voice.” 


Ynaxotw is found in Acts xii:13 and is there translated in the 
Authorized Version—“‘hearken’”—and in the Revised Version— 
“answer.” ‘The word also appears in Romans x:16 and is rendered 
“obey” by King James translators, and “hearken” by both the 
English and American revisers. 

Why did the translators choose the primary rendering—“heark- 
en’’—in the case of Abraham, and the secondary rendering—‘“obey”’ 
—in the case of Sarah? Fairness would have required like treat- 
ment. Either both verbs should have the primary translation, or 
both the secondary. In the former the reading would be: “In 
all that Sarah saith unto thee, hearken unto her voice,” and: 
“Sarah hearkened unto Abraham’; in the latter, “In all that 
Sarah saith unto thee, obey her voice’—and “Sarah obeyed Abra- 
ham.” Sex discrimination in the handling of God’s word is 
reprehensible, and is a sure index of a prejudiced mind. 

Sarah was no servile spouse. When occasion required, she as- 
serted herself with a resoluteness that accomplished her purpose. 


In view of this fact, if for no other reason, StaxoUw in I Peter 
iii:6 should have its primary rendering—“hearken.” 

The Apostle Peter further informed his readers that this ex- 
emplary wife called her husband “lord.” Sarah hearkened unto 


Abraham “calling him lord” (xJerov). There was nothing obse- 
quious in this. It was the usual form of address to a person in 
Abraham’s position. He was a great chief. The children of 
Heth said to him: “My lord; thou art a prince of God among 
us” (Gen. xxili:6); his “substance was great” (Gen. xiii:6) ; 
he “was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold” (Gen. xiii:2) ; 
“he led forth his trained men, born in his house, three hundred 
and eighteen” (Gen. xiv:14). The probabilities are that every- 
one that approached Abraham addressed him as “my lord.” Aside 
from all this, “my lord” was the conventional address to any 
esteemed individual. Jacob, on his return from Padan-Aram, met 


224 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


his brother Esau, and greeted him as “my lord” (Gen. xxxiii). 
Aaron, in his appeals to Moses, called him “my lord” (Ex. 
Xxxii:22; Num. xii:11). All through the Old Testament we meet 
with this form of address. It was usual in the time of Christ. 
When the Samaritan woman conversed with Jesus at Jacob’s well, 
although she regarded Him at first as but a strolling Jew, she 


called Him “lord,” (xdete) (John iv:11). The impotent man at 
the pool of Bethesda, though he “knew not who it was,” said to 


Jesus, “lord (xUere) I have no man, when the water is troubled, 
to put me into the pool” (John v:7). When the Greeks accosted 
Philip, they called him “lord”—‘“Lord (xtete) we would see Jesus” 
(John xii:21). When Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene on the 
morning of the Resurrection, “she, supposing Him to be the 
gardener, saith unto him, ‘lord’ (xJete), if thou hast borne him 
hence, tell me where thou hast laid him’ (John xx:15). The 
Philippian jailer addressed Paul and Silas as “lords’—“lords 
(xdetot) what must I do to be saved?” (Acts xvi:30). The 
Apostle John, in his Second Epistle, uses this word twice in the 
feminine. “The elder to the elect lady” (xtera). “And now I 
beseech thee, lady” (xJeta). 

The point we emphasize is this: “lord’’ was a conventional ad- 
dress, expressive of respect. In the case of Sarah it meant no 
more than for a wife of today to call her husband—‘“mister”—for 
“mister” is derivative from “master”; but such thought is not in 
the mind of the wife when she so addresses her husband. When a 
man accosts a neighbor or acquaintance as Mr. So-and-So, he is 
far from conceding that one’s right to rule over him. In time 
not far removed, correspondents signed themselves—“Your obe- 
dient servant”; “Your humble servant,” etc. President Lincoln 
was wont to thus subscribe himself when writing to members of 
his Cabinet. Today custom decrees that we address comparative 
strangers as “Dear Sir’; ‘““My Dear Madam,” etc. No one holds 
such expressions to be terms of endearment. “Respectfully 
yours,” “Sincerely yours” are not regarded as tokens of self-sur- 
render. All these are conventional phrases, and are not rated at 
face value. 


PETRINE PRECEPTS 225 


We know from Sacred Writ that Sarah was no obsequious 
spouse. She called her husband “lord” because it was the custo- 
mary address to a person of his standing. He, on the other hand, 
called her “Sarah,” which means—“princess.” 

If the reader will turn to our English Versions of the New 
Testament, he will find that in the passages cited—John iv:11; 
V:7, 133 Xi1:21; xx:15; Acts xvi:30—the translators have ren- 
dered xdotoc “sir” instead of “lord.” This is due to the fact that 
after the Resurrection a sacredness was attached to the term 
“lord” on account of its association with Jesus Christ. Because 
of this the rendering, “sir,’”’ was adopted where the address was 
to a human being. Why did the translators of the New Testa- 
ment depart from this rule when they came to I Peter iii:6? Why 
make an exception here? Why not, in conformity to their custom, 
render xUeto¢g “sir,” instead of “lord,” making the passage read: 
“as Sarah hearkened unto Abraham, calling him ‘sir’ ”’? 

The Apostle Peter’s exhortation to wives is followed by an in- 
junction to husbands: “Ye husbands, in like manner (dyolws) 
dwell with your wives according to knowledge, giving honor 
(ttunv) unto the woman, as unto the weaker vessel (dcfeveotéo w 
oxevet), as being also joint-heirs of the grace of life; to the end 
that your prayers be not hindered” (I Peter iii:7) (R.V.). 

The Authorized Version renders: “giving honor unto the wife, 
as unto the weaker vessel.” 

Alford makes 6yotws here refer back to 11:17, “Honour all men, 
Love the brotherhood, Fear God, honour the king.” Meyer, on 
the other hand, finds its antecedent in 11:13. “Be subject to 
every ordinance of man, for the Lord’s sake.” He says “Verse iii:7, 
éuotws, with the participle following, refers back, as in ili:1, to 
Uxotaynte ta&on &vVOow xtloet, with which the exhortation begins; 
though there is no bxotaccéuevot (cf. 11:18, iti:1) there lies some- 
thing corresponding to it in the fact that the wife on her part 
possesses a tt to be acknowledged by the husband.” 

“Dwell with your wives according to knowledge.” Of this 
Meyer says: “In an intelligent and reasonable manner.” 


226 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


“Giving honour (ttwhy) unto the wife” (A. V.). “Giving honor 
(ttuny) unto the woman” (R. V.). 

The word ttuy, translated “honor,” is of noble import. It 
means more than “esteem” or “respect.” These are states of 
mind. “Honor” is an attitude of mind expressed in conduct. It 
has subjective and objective influence. Furthermore, it implies 
recognition or valuation of worth in its object. The Apostle 
enjoins these husbands, not only to esteem their wives, but to 
manifest the same in their behavior. There must be, not only 
inward appreciation, but also outward recognition of their value. 
Wordsworth says of honor: “’Tis the finest sense of justice which 
the human mind can frame.” Webster says: “A token of esteem 
paid to worth”; “A nice sense of what is right, just, and true, 
with course of life correspondent thereto.” 


“As unto the weaker vessel” (d&cBeveotéom oxedet). In what 
sense is woman weaker than man? Certainly not from a moral or 
religious viewpoint. For ages mankind has accredited woman with 
being the “better half” of the race, and statistics seem to justify 
the tribute. We are told that from three-fourths to four-fifths 
of the inmates of penal institutions are males. This is the more 
remarkable when we take into consideration the unfavorable eco- 
nomic conditions under which women have labored. Joseph Cook, 
after depicting the deplorable lot of the wage-earning woman of his 
day, exclaimed with fervor: “How many men are there today in 
Boston who would starve to death for the sake of being vir- 
tuous ?” 

Women preponderate numerically in all branches of the church. 
They are more active in philanthropic and eleemosynary enter- 
prises. Even in heathen lands they are more responsive to the 
appeals of religion. While the Bible makes no such distinction, 
men in all ages have set the moral standard higher for women than 
for their own sex. This is tacit admission on their part of the 
moral superiority of women. Whether this higher development 
is due to environment or is constitutional, we are not prepared to 
say. We are dealing solely with the fact. 

Is woman mentally inferior to man? For ages this was held 


PETRINE PRECEPTS 22'7 


as axiomatic. It was taken for granted that man excelled in the 
realm of intellect. He confidently announced his superiority, then 
stood guard over the institutions of learning, lest woman should 
enter and disprove his assumption. Today there is reversal—at 
least in part—of this attitude. Doors are unbarred, academic halls 
are open, and in every department of science and of art woman 
is proving herself a formidable competitor. Even in highest 
institutions of learning she is walking off with prizes. 

In 600 B. c., Athens unfettered one of her five classes of women 
—the hetaira. These emancipated members of the sex “culti- 
vated all the graces of life.” They also trained the intellect. 
Among them were individuals who achieved renown as poets, 
philosophers and rhetoricians. 

During the long period of her sequestration, when the world 
frowned on the education of woman, ever and anon the talent 
within her asserted itselfi—at times in association with some 
man, who relieved her of odium by appropriating to himself 
the honors of her achievements. We live in a different at- 
mosphere today. In this era, a large proportion of mankind 
are willing to be just to woman—some are even generous. 
General Lew Wallace frankly declared that he could never have 
written “Ben Hur” without the assistance of his wife. M. Curie 
refused the red ribbon because it was not also tendered to 
Madame Curie, who had more to do with the discovery of radium 
than he himself could claim. 

In times agone the size and weight of woman’s brain in com- 
parison to that of man’s, had an interesting place in the discussion 
of her mentality. Some years ago Dr. Hammond disturbed school 
boards and regents of colleges considering the admission of women 
on equal footing with men, by announcing nineteen marks of dif- 
ference between the male and female brain. The matter was 
brought to the attention of Dr. Spitzka, the most eminent authority 
on the question in America. The following is his reply in sub- 
stance: He declared the aforesaid “marks,” in the main, an as- 
sumption; that no man could tell the male from the female brain 
by inspection alone; that the assumed points of difference did not 
necessarily indicate inferiority in the female, and that as a matter 


228 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


of fact, no man living could locate sex peculiarities in the human 
brain. This great anatomist also reminded his interrogator that 
great inequality had existed in the treatment of the subject; that up 
to that time the brain of no prominent woman had been tested. 
“We are pitting,’ he said, “the contents of Webster’s mighty 
cranium against the brain of the female tramp, whose body re- 
mains unclaimed in the charity hospital,’ and added, “Even then 
the average difference in weight between the male and female 
brain is but one hundred grammes. However, weight does not 
figure, as the difference between Gambetta and Cromwell, both 
statesmen, was nine hundred grammes.” To Dr. Hammond’s 
statement that the specific gravity of the female brain is less than 
that of the male, Dr. Spitzka made this trenchant answer: “It is 
known that in old age and dementia the specific gravity of the 
brain increases.” 

In the “Literary Digest” of March 27, 1897, is an article under 
the caption—“Is Woman’s Brain Inferior to Man’s?” We quote 
the following: 


“In a recent issue of ‘Self Culture,’ Dr. H. S. Drayton tells us 
that while woman’s brain is smaller than man’s, it is larger in 
proportion to the total weight of the body, and is more finely or- 
ganized, so that, in his opinion, honors are about even. Says Dr. 
Drayton: 

“ “At the outset it can be said that, so far as the construction of 
the brain elements in themselves is concerned, there is nothing 
that warrants opinion regarding any defect as such to be set to 
the account of woman. 

“*There are some authorities who claim that on the score of 
quality, on.the fineness and delicacy of her general constitution, 
woman may assert a comparative superiority. Professor G. B. 
Bruhl of Vienna, for instance, in his paper on Woman’s Brain, 
Woman’s Mind, appears to think that the absence of difference in 
their tissue elements implies the absolute equality of the sexes. 

“If we were to limit ourselves to the question of weight or size 
alone in the attempt to determine mental capacity, great injustice 
would be done. Yet there are many physiologists, or writers on 
brain-capacity, who stickle for the four or five ounces of over- 
weight in the male brain as a positive determination of its su- 


PETRINE PRECEPTS 229 


periority, and apparently forget that in all examinations of nerve 
property, its structure as to quality and health should be taken into 
consideration. 

“In typical womanhood the general physiology is smaller and 
finer, the nervous system especially being more delicate and sym- 
metrical. In proportion to her weight, however, the brain of 
woman is somewhat heavier, so that putting the two things to- 
gether, it may be claimed as a reasonable conclusion, and not a 
concession of gallantry, that woman, so far as the brain and 
nervous system are concerned, is very nearly, if not absolutely, 
upon the same plane with her masculine counterpart.’ ” 


Professor Ludwig Btichner says: “Neither the chemical nor 
the physical examination of the brain by means of the microscope 
has yet shown any real difference between the two species of brain 
by which any distinction of functional capacity can be discovered.” 

In all discussions as to the relative mental caliber of men and 
women, another fact must not be overlooked. For ages man has 
had encouragement in the training of the intellect, while woman 
has, until recently, had obstacles piled in her pathway. 

Readers may recall when it was said of a woman of marked 
ability—“She has a man’s head.” One writer delivered himself 
after this fashion: “Now and then we meet a woman with a man’s 
head, but it is an unfortunate thing for the woman.” The author 
of this volume believes in “the eternal feminine” and agrees in 
part with the aforesaid writer. We can conceive of nothing more 
unfortunate than “a woman with a man’s head,” except it be a 
man with a blockhead. 

“Giving honor unto the woman as unto the weaker vessel.” 
Most modern commentators agree that the weakness here spoken 
of is physical. If it is not moral, spiritual, or mental, it must of 
necessity be physical. Woman is inferior to man in muscular 
development; he is the stronger vessel. Of course his greater 
opportunity for training must be taken into consideration. Her 
indoor life has been against woman. In heathen lands she has been 
imprisoned in zenanas and harems. In the ranks of the poor she 
has been an overworked beast of burden. Even in civilized lands, 
until recently, custom decreed that she be sequestered in the home. 


230 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


From earliest childhood girls were taught they must not romp and 
play as their brothers; they must not be “tomboys.” 

Girls of today are allowed larger freedom and the results are 
visible. The gymnasium and outdoor sports have wrought for 
their physical development; but when all has been done in the 
way of training, the fact remains that the average woman is no 
match for the average man when it comes to a trial of muscle. 
_ There are exceptional individuals on both sides, but this does not 
invalidate the rule. The young woman of ancient Sparta enjoyed 
unusual advantages in the way of physical training, but in general 
the Spartan youth was stronger than the Spartan maiden. 

That this difference is not due solely to environment, but is 
constitutional, is proven by the fact that this same law prevails in 
the animal kingdom. Among beasts the male is stronger than the 
female. 

Man excels in muscular development, but the law of compensa- 
tion operates. Woman exceeds in vitality. Her power of re- 
sistance to disease is greater than man’s; she can survive a shock 
that would be his undoing. Insurance statistics prove that women 
in general are longer lived than men. In computation, allowance 
must be made for hazards that attend masculine vocations, but 
these are in a measure offset by the perils incident to parturition. 

Woman was not built for the heavier tasks of life. This is 
evident from the fact that she is not “armed and engined for the 
same.” She is less vigorous than man; is of finer texture; her 
anatomical structure is more complex ; her contour more symmetri- 
cal; her nervous system more delicate and sensitive. Hers the holy 
office of motherhood. 

At creation “Jehovah God took the man and put him into the 
garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it” (Gen. ii:15). His ap- 
portioned task, to grapple with physical forces. “And the man 
called his wife’s name Eve” (mim—Life) “because she was the 
mother of all living” (Gen. iii:20). Hers to enfold and nourish 
spiritual beings entrusted to her bosom. 

Man, because of his superior brawn, is in the order of nature, 
woman’s defender—her warder from physical harm. But again 
the law of compensation operates. In the realm of morals, woman 


PETRINE PRECEPTS 231 


takes precedence; she stands erect where man succumbs. He is 
her knight in armor when physical danger threatens; she is his 
good angel when the forces of evil bombard the soul. Charles 
Hanson Towne, in his poem entitled, “Woman,” writes: 


“Oh, little woman heart, be glad, be glad, 
That you are what God made you! Well I know 
How you have nerved me when the day was sad, 


And made me better—yea, and kept me so! 
* * * * 


“A silent influence to whose source I trace 
The little good there ever was in me. 


“To be a woman, is there any more 
That you have need to be from day to day? 
How wonderful to have your heart, your store 
Of purity and goodness, and to say: 
‘One that I love is nobler since I came; 
One that loves me is better for my sake?’ ”’ 


Men of the nobler sort have ever paid tribute to the refining, 
purifying influence of a true woman. She is an inspirational 
force in man’s life. The presence—yea, even the memory, of a 
loving mother or wife has made many a man invulnerable to the 
poisoned darts of his foe. In general, man apart from the whole- 
some society of woman, lowers his standard of living. In the 
Divine economy the sexes are complementary. The weakness of 
the one is the strength of the other. They are mutually helpful: 


Man, woman’s defender in the hour of physical strife; 
Woman, man’s support when the moral battle wages. 


XI 


PAULINE DECRETALS: DOMESTIC STATUS: OB 
WOMAN 


storm center in every controversy over the domestic and 

ecclesiastical status of woman. Opponents in particular 
have exalted these writings to first place in every discussion of the 
subject, and their author to the position of supreme arbiter of 
every mooted question. Genesis 111:16 and the Pauline epistles 
are the “stock in trade” of such as seek to stay woman from the 
path of progress, and to perpetuate her age long restrainment; of 
such as hold with Chaucer: 


NOR nineteen centuries the Pauline epistles have been the 


“Women are born to thraldom and to penance, 
And to be under man’s governance” ; 


or with Dryden: 


“He shall rule, and she in thralldom live.” 


Genesis 1ii:16 has already received consideration, and we now turn 
to the writings of the great Apostle to the Gentiles. Thirteen 
epistles—omitting Hebrews—are accredited to this author. In 
five of these—I Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians, I Timothy, 
and Titus—the Apostle legislates on the question under discussion. 
For convenience we arrange his decretals under two heads— 
First, such as have to do with the marriage relation—husband 
and wife. Second, his rulings concerning woman’s position in 
the church. The former is the theme of the present chapter. We 
will study these writings in their chronological order, in so far as 
such can be determined. 

As to the time when these several documents were written, 
chief authorities are at agreement in assigning them dates within 
the Neronian period. Persecution was rife or impending. It is 
further to be noted that they were addressed to churches or indi- 

232 


PAULINE DECRETALS 233 


viduals within the bounds of the Roman Empire, where the relation- 
ship of husband and wife was predetermined by the State in the 
law of Patria Potestas and Manus Viri. In general, the Apostle 
Paul, in writing these epistles, faced the same conditions as con- 
fronted the Apostle Peter when he wrote to the “Elect,” “So- 
journers of the Dispersion,” in Asia Minor. 


THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE CORINTHIANS 


In the order adopted, the First Epistle to the Corinthians 
_ becomes the object of our study. Our first task here is to dif- 
ferentiate between inspired and uninspired utterances. We are 
not in accord with redactors who hold that every deliverance of 
an Apostle was under the Divine inflatus; especially do we dissent 
from such claim when the writer of the epistle assures his readers 
to the contrary. The Apostle himself was the best judge as to 
inspiration, and when he records: “But to the rest say I, not the 
Lord” (vii:12); “I have no commandment of the Lord; but I 
give my judgment” (vii:25), he avers his lack of spiritual illumi- 
nation, and we accept his words at face value. F. W. Robertson, 
in his “Expository Lectures,” says: 


“The whole of the seventh chapter of the First Epistle of the 
Apostle Paul to the Corinthians is occupied with some questions 
of casuistry. ... There are, however, two great divisions into 
which these answers generally fall. St. Paul makes a distinction 
between those things which he speaks by commandment and those 
which he speaks only by permission; there is a distinction between 
what he says as from the Lord, and what only from himself; 
between that which he speaks to them as being taught of God, 
and that which he speaks only as a servant, ‘called of the Lord 
and faithful’” (p. 116). He says further: “The duty must be 
stated, not universally, but with reference to those circumstances.” 


Drane says: “He is speaking in accordance with his own judg- 
ment, not giving a command of Christ” (p. 115). 

“The whole of the rest of this chapter (I Cor. vii:12-40) is, as 
the Apostle himself tells us, his own opinion” (p. 116). 

Beet, commenting on vii:25, says: “‘I give my opinion, refus- 
ing to speak with apostolic authority. This by no means proves 


234 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


that when he claims this authority, as in verse 17 and xiv :37, his 
words are not absolutely binding. It rather proves that he could 
measure the degree to which he was enlightened by the Spirit” 
(DAT 29) 

Dr. Hodge says: “ ‘I have no commandment of the Lord,’ that 
is, neither Christ Himself, nor the Spirit of Christ, by Whom 
Paul was guided, had commissioned him to do anything more than 
counsel these persons. He was inspired, or led by the Spirit, in 
this matter, not to command, but to advise.” 

Bishop Ellicott, writing on the same passage, says: “ ‘I give my 
opinion or advice.’ It seems scarcely to amount here to ‘judgment’ ; 
but in accordance with the tenor of the whole passage, to point to 
the ‘opinion’ which the Apostle had formed on the whole difficult 
subject.” 

Some commentators—especially of the older school—hold other- 
wise. They are unwilling to admit that an Apostle could speak or 
write unmoved by the Holy Ghost. Their contention is that in 
the statements, “To the rest say I, not the Lord”; “I have no 
commandment of the Lord; but I give my opinion,” the writer 
of this Epistle is not disclaiming inspiration, but only acquainting 
his correspondents with the fact that the Lord Jesus had made no 
pronouncement on the questions at issue. Meyer says: “He dis- 
tinguishes, therefore, here and in verses 12 and 25, not between 
his own and inspired commands, but between those which pro- 
ceeded from his own (God inspired) subjectivity and those which 
Christ Himself supplied by His subjective word.’ 

This, to the author’s way of thinking, is a wresting of language. 
The Apostle differentiates between his inspired and uninspired 
utterances. In his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, he says: 
“That which I speak, I speak not after the Lord, but as in fool-° 
ishness” (xi:17), and also informs his readers that for a time he 
experienced regret over the writing of the First Epistle (vii:8). 
But why regret if he believed himself to be writing under the 
influence of the Spirit? 

It is not required of us to accord that which the Apostle himself 
disclaims. “I have no commandment of the Lord.” If the Apostle 
Paul meant by this that the Lord Jesus had left on record no rule 


PAULINE DECRETALS 235 


governing the matter under discussion, he would, in all probability, 
have written—“WV/e have no commandment of the Lord.” Instead, 
he uses the first person singular—‘I’—individually—‘“have no 
commandment of the Lord.” The Holy Spirit had not “opened 
his mind” on this question, and in lieu thereof he gives his own 
opinion. The author of this volume yields to no one in reverence 
for Sacred Writ, but does not subscribe to the view that every 
time an Apostle took a pen in hand he was “moved by the Holy 
Ghost.” One expositor goes so far as to hold the Apostles were at 
all times and under all circumstances prompted by the Spirit. We 
inquire, How about that controversy at Antioch? (Gal. ili:11-15). 
Here we have two of the leading Apostles at variance; but why at 
variance if both were under the influence of the Holy Spirit? 

In his “Epistle to the Galatians,” Paul uses this strong language: 
“When Cephas came to Antioch, I resisted him to the face because 
he stood condemned” (ii:11). He went further, and rebuked his 
fellow-Apostle before the church (11:14). It is said of Barnabas: 
“He was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith” 
(Acts xi:24); but on one occasion the contention between Paul 
and this fellow-laborer was so sharp “that they parted asunder 
one from the other” (Acts xv:37-41). The New Testament does 
not teach the infallibility of the Apostles; they were men “of like 
passions with us,” and “compassed with infirmity.” When occa- 
sion required, God used them as His vehicles, they spoke and 
wrote and also acted under the impulse of the Spirit, but they were 
not at all times and under all circumstances “moved by the Holy 
Ghost.” 

Down through the centuries there has been a disposition on the 
part of the church to clothe the Apostle Paul with infallibility. 
He never made such claim. The Protestant Church, in particular, 
has assumed such attitude. There has been no pronunciamento 
to that effect, but the mental bias has been in that direction. It 
may almost be said that the Apostle Paul has held in the Protestant 
Church the position accorded the Apostle Peter in the Church of 
Rome. There is some show of reason in the charge that Protes- 
tantism is a Pauline type of religion. It is safe to affirm that in 
Protestant pulpits five times as many texts are chosen from the 


236 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


Pauline writings as from the sayings of Jesus: theological semi- 
naries, as a rule, spend far more time on the study of his epistles 
than is given to the Gospels. In the minds of some clerics the 
man of Tarsus well-nigh supersedes the Man of Galilee. He was 
beyond question a master mind; the Christian era has produced 
none greater; he was prince of the Apostles; “a chosen vessel,” 
ordained of God to bear the Gospel to “the Gentiles and kings 
and the children of Israel,” but he was not superhuman; he was 
not inerrable. Only one impeccable Being has ever tabernacled 
in the flesh—JESUS, THE CHRIST. 

In our study of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, we group 
the passages which the author himself has indicated as uninspired : 


VII :2-9: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman. But 
because of fornication, let each man have his own wife, and let 
each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto 
the wife her due, and likewise also the wife unto the husband. 
The wife hath not power over her own body, but the husband; 
and likewise also the husband hath not power over his own body, 
but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be by con- 
sent for a season, that ye may give yourselves unto prayer, and 
may be together again, that Satan tempt you not because of your 
incontinency. But this I say by way of permission, and not of 
commandment. Yet I would that all men were even as I myself. 
Howbeit each man hath his own gift from God, one after this 
manner, and another after that. 

“But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them 
if they abide even as I. But if they have not continency, let them 
marry; for it is better to marry than to burn.” 


Vil:12-17: “But to the rest say I, not the Lord: If any brother 
hath an unbelieving wife, and she is content to dwell with him, 
let him not leave her. And the woman which hath an unbelieving 
husband, and he is content to dwell with her, let her not leave her 
husband. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, 
and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother: else were 
your children unclean; but now are they holy. Yet if the unbe- 
lieving departeth, let him depart: the brother or sister is not under 
bondage in such cases: but God hath called us in peace. For how 
knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? Or 


PAULINE DECRETALS 237 


how knowest thou, O husband, whether thou shalt save thy wife? 
Only as the Lord hath distributed to each man, as God hath called 
each, so let him walk. And so ordain I in all the churches.” 


VII:25-40: “Now concerning virgins I have no commandment 
of the Lord; but I give my judgment as one that hath obtained 
mercy of the Lord to be faithful. I think therefore it is good by 
reason of the present distress, that it is good for a man to be as 
he is. Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art 
thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife. But and if thou marry 
thou hast not sinned: and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. 
Yet such shall have tribulation in the flesh; and I would spare you. 
But this I say, brethren, the time is shortened, that henceforth 
both those that have wives may be as though they had none: ... 
I would have you free from cares. He that is unmarried is care- 
ful for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord: but 
he that is married is careful for the things of the world, how he 
may please his wife. And there is a difference also between the . 
wife and the virgin. She that is unmarried is careful for the 
things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in 
spirit: but she that is married is careful for the things of the 
world, how she may please her husband. And this I say for your 
own profit; not that I would cast a snare upon you, but that which 
is seemly, and that ye may attend upon the Lord without distrac- 
tion. But if any man thinketh that he behaveth himself unseemly 
toward his virgin, if she be passed the flower of her age, and if 
“need so requireth, let him do what he will; he sinneth not; let 
them marry. But he that standeth steadfast in his heart, having 
no necessity, but hath power as touching his own will, and hath 
determined this in his own heart, to keep his own virgin, shall do 
well. So then both he that giveth his own virgin in marriage 
doeth well; and he that giveth her not in marriage shall do better. 
A wife is bound for so long time as her husband liveth: but if the 
husband be dead, she is free to be married to whom she will: only 
in the Lord. But she is happier if she abide as she is, after my 
judgment, and I think that I also have the Spirit of God.” 

Not only does the Apostle Paul assure his readers that the fore- 
going adjudgments are of himself and “not of the Lord,’ but the 
contents confirm his statement. They bear the imprint of the 
human rather than of the Divine. Take a few examples: 


238 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


VII:1: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” We turn 
to Genesis ii:18, and read the affirmation of Jehovah: “It is not 
good that the man should be alone; I will make to him( \> )help 
as his counterpart.” Redactors holding to the plenary inspiration 
of the Apostle seek to modify his statement by attaching the quali- 
fying clause of verse 26—“By reason of the present distress.” 
This is forced exegesis. There is no grammatical connection 
between the two passages. “By reason of the present distress” 
relates itself, not to what precedes, but to what follows. 

VII :2,3: Here the Apostle treats of marriage in its lowest terms. 
He does not hold it up, as in Ephesians v:22-33, as a symbolism 
of the union of Christ and the Church. Instead of “the holy estate 
of matrimony,” he lowers it to an expediency for the gratification 
of sexual appetites. Much of the seventh chapter is devoted to 
a laudation of celibacy and a depreciation of wedlock (vs. I, 7, 8, 
26, 127, 32-37, 38, 40)... We; quote from Meyer: Hersays: 
“Ruchert thinks that Paul exhibits here a very poor opinion of 
marriage and Baur has more fully developed this idea so as to 
assert that the Apostle’s view of marriage is at variance with the 
moral conception of it which now prevails.” 

VII:4: “The wife hath not power over her own body, but the 
husband.” Here is a heathen dogma, adopted by the Jewish 
Rabbim. Nowhere, aside from this passage in First Corinthians, 
does it find sanction in God’s word. Peter Taylor Forsyth, in 
“Marriage: Its Ethic and Religion,” p. 78, says: “The principle 
of any human creature being the absolute property of another is 
quite fatal to Christianity, and must be outgrown. ... Wherever she 
is so regarded, Christianity must bring a radical change. In so far 
as woman’s position anywhere is slavery, Christianity must alter it.” 

The dogma that “a wife hath not power over her own body, 
but the husband,” has degraded multitudes of women into sexual 
slaves; in manifold cases it has demanded a sacrifice of health 
and self-respect, and at all times denies to the wife a self-deter- 
mination that belongs to the female of the brute creation. 

The Apostle imbibed this doctrine, not from Sacred Scripture, 
but from the Oral law. He was a Pharisee, and never severed 
connection with this “straitest sect” of the Jewish religion. On 


PAULINE DECRETALS 239 


the occasion of his last visit to Jerusalem, when haled before the 
Council, he cried out: “I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees’ (Acts 
xxili:6). The Pharisees were zealous champions of the Oral law 
—its chief defenders—and the Oral law taught that “a wife hath 
not power over her own body, but the husband.” 

VII:15: The Apostle makes willful desertion a ground for the 
severance of the marriage relation. This brings him into conflict 
with the teaching of Jesus. Matt. v:32 we have the words of our 
Lord: “Every one that putteth away his wife, saving for the cause 
of fornication, maketh her an adulteress: and whosoever shall 
marry her when she is put away committeth adultery.” Also 
Matt. xix:9, “Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for 
fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery.”’ Mark 
x:12, “If she herself shall put away her husband, and marry 
another, she committeth adultery.” 

Expositors tug and wrench at this saying of Jesus in an effort 
to bring it into accord with the Pauline precept. Why not reverse 
the process? If alignment must be made, why not adjust the 
Apostle’s teaching to the norm of Jesus? Must conformity be on 
the part of Paul or on the part of Jesus Christ? 

Expositors tell us that Christ was addressing an assemblage of 
Jews, and the rule laid down was applicable only to persons of 
that nationality ; that He was not contemplating the Gentile world. 
The Apostle, we are told, faced an entirely different situation; his 
was a new problem—the marriage of believers and nonbelievers— 
Christians and heathen. Here, they say, were cases not provided 
for in the rule laid down by Christ, hence the Apostolic precept. 
Expositors who take this position are treading on dangerous 
ground. How about the “every one” and the “whosoever”? Are 
they not inclusive of the race? Do they not environ Jew and 
Gentile? Do they allow for exceptions? Do they not make pro- 
vision for contingencies? If we may restrict the meaning of 
“every one” in Matthew v:32, we may do likewise in Matthew 
vii:8, and for the same reason. The Sermon on the Mount was 
preached to a Jewish congregation. If we may limit “whosoever” 
in Matthew v:32, and in Matthew xix:9, to persons of Hebrew 
birth, we may do likewise with John iii:16. This, the sweetest 


240 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


message of the New Testament, was spoken to a Jewish rabbi. 
Follow out this rule and you have robbed the Gentile world of the 
Gospels. Almost all of Christ’s discourses were to the “lost sheep 
of the house of Israel,” but through them He spoke into the ages— 
for the race and to the race. His “everyone” and “whosoever” 
embrace humankind. 

There is bare possibility that the Apostle Paul was dealing, not 
with divorce, but with separation. Such, however, is not the opin- 
ion of commentators. If he lays down a rule for the severance 
of the marriage tie, he is at variance with the teachings of Jesus 
on this subject. This of itself is sufficient proof that he spoke of 
himself and not of the Lord. 

VII :29-31: In these verses the Apostle evinces his belief in the 
imminence of the Parousia, He shared, in common with the early 
Christians, the expectation of the speedy return of our Lord to es- 
tablish His Kingdom. To maintain that the Apostle here refers to 
the brevity of human life is an unsatisfactory explanation—a sub- 
terfuge—resorted to in order to relieve from the charge of errancy. 

In the foregoing passages all wrenching and distorting can 
be avoided by accepting the plain, unequivocal statement of the 
Apostle: “This I say by way of permission, not of commandment.” 
“To the rest say I, not the Lord.” “I have no commandment of 
the Lord, but I give my judgment.” There is no derogation in 
such confession. It redounds to the credit of the author of this 
Epistle that he refused to foist on his readers his own opinions as 
commandments of the Lord. 

Aside from the uninspired passages colligated, there are but 
two paragraphs in this First Epistle to the Corinthians bearing 
on the domestic status of woman—vii:10, I1, and xi:3. The 
former has to do with desertion on the part of wife or husband 
and is self-explanatory; the latter is more involved and demands 
serious consideration: 

“T would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, 
but the head of woman is the man: and the head of Christ is God.” 

We confine our study to the second clause of this passage— 


“But the head of woman is the man” (xeqadt 82 yuvatnds 6 
dyno). Our objection here is to the translation. In the Greek 


PAULINE DECRETALS 241 


language the word for woman and the word for wife is the same— 


Yuv%. The word for man and for husband is the same—dyjo. 
Unless determined by the context, the choice of rendering rests 
entirely with the translator. The alternate reading of the passage 


before us is—The head of a wife (yuvatxés) is the husband 
(dvje). Instead of this, the translators have adopted the more 
inclusive rendering—‘‘The head of woman (yuvatxés) is the man” 


(gyno). Far more is involved in this choice of words than 
appears on the surface—more perhaps than the translators them- 
selves realized. In this general statement they have iterated the 
Roman dogma—‘the perpetual tutelage of woman.’ She must 
ever be the ward of man—betfore marriage, her father; after 
marriage, her husband; in case of his death, a guardian designated 
in his will or her nearest male relative. Under no circumstance 
can she attain majority. She must ever be a minor; ever under 
the governance of man. 

This was not only a provision of Roman law, but an inflexible 
mandate of the heathen world——““The head of woman is the man.” 
The passage as it now stands, in both the Authorized and Revised 
Version, is a bare restatement of the dogma—‘“The perpetual 
tutelage of woman.” At all times and under all circumstances 
she must have an overlord. 

It has been a boast of Christianity that it manumitted woman. 
Far from it, if the adopted rendering of I Corinthians xi:3 is the 
correct one. Instead of liberating her, it has riveted her chains; 
it has proclaimed a thraldom never sanctioned by the Law of 
Moses. It has linked arms with heathendom to keep her in per- 
petual vassalage; from the cradle to the grave it entangles her in 
“a yoke of bondage’; for her there is no year of Jubilee; Christ 
never set her free. 

J. J. Moss, in his book, “Criticism and Exegesis of Scripture,” 
p. 5, says: “As God’s government or headship is over Christ, and 
Christ’s over man, so is the man’s over the woman in the church, 
whether the man be the woman’s father, brother, husband or son.” 

We protest against the accepted rendering of I Corinthians xi:3 
in so far as it relates to woman. We reject it as an anti-Christian 


242 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


proclamation. It jars with the Golden Rule, and that which jars 
with the Golden Rule of Christ is not of “the mind of the Spirit.” 

Expositors seek to mollify the rigor of the passage as translated, 
by assuring the reader that certain things “must be understood.” 
“Tt must be understood” that the Apostle had only believers in 
mind when he made this declaration; that “the head of every man 
is Christ ; and the head of woman is the man,” applies only to such 
as are in vital union with their Lord, and members of His body— 
the Church. This only complicates matters; it increases the diff- 
culty. We find ourselves in a maze. If only a believing man can 
be the head of a believing woman, how about the Christian wife 
whose husband rejects the faith? Must she seek another man in 
the Church of Jesus Christ to exercise lordship over her? We 
learn from the Acts of the Apostles, and from other histories of 
the early Christian church, that there were many women converts. 
The ratio in the church today is, approximately, two women to one 
man. If every woman must have a masculine head, considerable 
doubling up must be required. Each man must “head” at least 
two women. Like the Mormon elder, he must be “‘sealed” to more 
than one—his own wife and some unwedded sister. The result 
would be domestic infelicity. The unmarried man would be equally 
distraught in his attempt to “head” the spouse of some unbeliever. 
Roman law decreed that the husband should be the sole and abso- 
lute head of his wife, but in the case before us the unfortunate 
woman would be double-headed—a spiritual head under the ruling 
of the Church, and a legal head under the law of the Empire. 
Under such circumstances the Church would face some serious 
problems. 

It may be objected that such is not the import of the passage 
before us; the Apostle had no such apportionment in mind, and 
such inference is unwarrantable. His intent is evident. He is 
laying down a law for Church government. All authority must 
vest in the male members, women are debarred from all adminis- 
terial offices. They may serve, but always under the superintend- 
ency of man. They may be “hewers of wood and drawers of 
water unto all the congregation,” but under no circumstances may 
they occupy “the chief seats in the synagogues.” 


PAULINE DECRETALS 243 


There is no denying that the latter interpretation of the Apostle’s 
words has found favor in ecclesiastical circles, and that the policy 
of the church has been shaped along this line. Early in the second 
century men arrogated to themselves the right to govern in eccle- 
siastical affairs, and from that time to the present, with few excep- 
tions, women have been excluded from the legislative and executive 
departments of the church. 

But there is one fact fatal to this construction of the passage 
under review, and that is the Apostle’s practice. He would not, 
and with consistency could not, interdict what he himself allowed. 
That he permitted women to hold office will appear in our next 
chapter—“The Status of Woman in New Testament Church.” 

The rendering of I Corinthians xi:3 in both the Authorized and 
Revised Versions is so unsatisfactory—so fraught with difficulties 
and entanglements, that Dr. Drane, in his “Commentary on the 
Pauline Epistles,” rejects it altogether. He adjudges the entire 
section, xi:2-16, to be an interpolation; the work of some scribe 
who edited the Epistle. We are not prepared to go this length on 
the mere assumption of a redactor. Instead of this, we contend 
for a sane translation. This we may have by adopting the alternate 
rendering—“the head of a wife is the husband”—or allowing the 
pronoun possessive force—“her husband” (6 évno). This relieves 
from entanglements, harmonizes with the context and brings the 
passage into complete accord with Ephesians v:22-24. Dr. 
Weymouth, in his “Modern English Translation,’ renders thus: 
“T would have you know that of every man, Christ is the Head; 
that of a woman, her husband is the head.” 

This headship of the husband will receive consideration in con- 
nection with a closely related passage—Ephesians v:22-24. I Cor- 
inthians xi:4-16 will claim our attention in the succeeding chapter. 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 


Ephesus, in the time of the Apostle Paul, was a large and 
flourishing city—the capital not only of Ionia, but of the entire 
province of Asia. Domestic relations in this commercial and 
religious center were determined by Roman law and Greek cus- 
toms. The Apostle Paul understood this. Here he had founded 


244 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


a church; here he reasoned daily in the school of Tyrannus. “And 
this continued for the space of two years; so that all they which 
dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.” 
The Epistle to the Ephesians was written about A.D. 63, while 
the Apostle was suffering imprisonment at Rome. The subject of 
this volume confines our study to chapter V, verses 21-33, inclusive. 


“Subjecting yourselves (Sroaccéuevor) one to another in the fear 
of Christ. : 

“Wives [be in subjection] unto your own husbands, as unto the 
Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is 
the Head of the church, [being] Himself the saviour of the body. 
But as the church is subject to Christ, so [let] the wives also [be] 
to their husbands in everything. Husbands love your wives, even 
as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself up for it; that 
He might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water 
with the word, that He might present the church to Himself a 
glorious [church] not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; 
but that it should be holy and without blemish. Even so ought 
husbands also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He 
that loveth his own wife loveth himself; for no man ever hated 
his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as Christ also 
the church; because we are members of His body. For this cause 
shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his 
wife: and the twain shall become one flesh. This mystery is great: 
but I speak in regard of Christ and of the church. Nevertheless 
do ye also severally love each one his own wife even as himself: 
and [let] the wife [see] that she fear her husband” (R. V.). 


In transcribing this passage, we have bracketed the words not 
found in the Greek text. 

We begin our study of this fifth chapter of Ephesians at the 
twenty-first verse. This is essential to a clear understanding of 
what follows. The twenty-first verse furnishes the verb for the 
twenty-second. Because of this the two must not be disjointed. 

V :21: “Subjecting yourselves (Snotaccéuevot) one to another in 
the fear of Christ.” The Apostle is here exhorting the members 
of the Ephesian church to a voluntary surrender of personal pref- 
erences, one to another. The verb Srotaccéuevot is in the middle 
voice. Not compulsion, but impulsion: not external pressure, but 


PAULINE DECRETALS 245 


internal prompting. Not a yielding under constraint, but with 
ready mind. 

“Subjecting yourselves one to another.” The rule as here laid 
down is general, binding on every member of the church, regard- 
less of sex—men as well as women; husbands as well as wives. 
No room for preferential rights. 

It can readily be seen that under such circumstances the verb 


bf 


Unotaccduevot would be devoid of servile import. An obligation 
which is mutual, a duty which is reciprocal, precludes self-assertion 
on the part of any. No one can arrogate to himself the right to 


dictate. No matter what txotdsow may signify elsewhere, in the 
case before us it can only mean Christian courtesy; a due regard 
for the opinions of others; a readiness to make concessions in the 
interest of harmony and good will. 

Verse 22: “Wives unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord” 
(Al yuvaines totic tdtors dvSedoty Oo tH xvetw). In the Greek 
the verb is wanting and must be supplied from the preceding 
‘verse—twenty-one; and according to the rules of syntax, the 
supply must be made without change of voice, tense or mood. 


Yrotacoéuevor must be carried from verse twenty-one to verse 
twenty-two without modification. But how do we find it in our 
English Bibles? We marvel that men charged with the sacred 
task of translating God’s Word would assume the responsibility 
of wresting Scripture to bring it into line with their own predilec- 
tions. A reference to both the Authorized and Revised Versions 


will reveal the fact that the translators, in carrying Unotaccduevot 
from verse twenty-one to verse twenty-two, have changed both 
mood and voice; they have substituted the imperative for the par- 
ticiple and the active for the middle. Instead of making the pas- 
sage read—“Wives [subjecting yourselves] unto your own hus- 
bands,” they have rendered, “Wives [be in subjection] unto your 
own husbands.” 

Furthermore, the verb when carried forward must have the same 
import; there must be no stressing; no underscoring. The contents 


of Sxotdéccw in verse twenty-two must be measured by its contents 
in verse twenty-one. If in verse twenty-one it means a self- 


246 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


imposed restraint on the part of members of the church in their 
attitude one toward the other; a deferential regard for the wishes 
of fellow-Christians ; a concessional spirit that refuses to be self- 
assertive—if this is its import in verse twenty-one, we may not add 


to, or take from in its transference to verse twenty-two. Yrotao- 


oéucyot is the predicate of both sentences, and the self-subjection 
of the wife need not go beyond the self-subjection of the 
church member. Forsyth, commenting on this exhortation to wives 
(v:22), says: “The verse before [twenty-one] urges the mem- 
bers of the church to submit themselves to each other in the fear 
of God. So that the precept to the wife is no more than a par- 
ticular application of the general precept given to every Christian, 
male or female, which therefore enjoins also due submission in its 
own kind of the Christian husband to the Christian wife. It means 
mutual and complementary forbearance, concession, courtesy, sacri- 
fice’ (“Marriage: Its Ethics and Religion,” pp. 72, 73). 

The question may arise—why does the Apostle, after the gen- 
eral exhortation of verse twenty-one, single out wives for special 
instruction? We counter with another—why does he, in verses 
twenty-five to thirty-three, single out husbands for the same pur- 
pose? 

The reason is apparent. Primarily, he is setting forth, under 
the figure of marriage, the union of Christ and the church. In 
verse thirty-two he says, “I speak in regard of Christ and the 
church.” Secondarily, he is indicating the obligations devolving 
on Christians in special relationship—that of wife and husband. 

Aside from the precept laid down in verse twenty-one, which 
is general and binding on every member of the church, there was 
special reason why these Ephesian wives should regard the will 
of their husbands. Ionia was a conquered province, under the 
sway of Rome, and the law of Patria Potestas held the husband 
responsible for the conduct of his wife; he was amenable for her 
offenses. This being the case, equity demanded that the wife take 
counsel with her husband. 

“Wives [subjecting yourselves] unto your own husbands as unto 
the Lord” (At yuvaines totic iStore dv8edew (Snotaccéuevat) Os TO 
xvoelw). What is the import of the words “as unto the Lord’? 


PAULINE DECRETALS 247 


Is the wife to revere her husband as Christ personified and submit 
to him as if he were the Lord? Christian consciousness rebels 
against such thought. This would be naught but idolatry. Under 
the precepts of God’s word no mortal may demand such homage. 

The phrase, “as unto the Lord,” is found elsewhere in the 
Pauline epistles. In Ephesians vi:7 we read: “With good will 
doing service, as unto the Lord, and not men.” In Colossians 


iii :23, ““Whatsoever ye do, work from the soul (é% puxf¢) as unto 
the Lord, and not to men.” In these two instances the added 
words, “And not to men,” precludes the thought of adoration of 
the creature. In Ephesians vi:5 we have a similar phrase: “Serv- 
ants be obedient unto them that according to the flesh are your 


lords (xvelots) with fear and trembling, in singleness of your 


heart, as unto Christ” (®¢t@ Xetotg). Who will hold that the 
Apostle is here injoining slaves to regard their masters as Christ 
incarnate? Away with such thought! God’s word forbids creature 
worship. 

What then is the import of the words “as unto the Lord” and 
like expressions? Simply this: The persons here addressed were 
to exercise “the higher right of giving up their rights” for Christ’s 
sake. They were to make this surrender in order that His king- 
dom might be established in the earth. In these human exactions 
they were to find opportunity to serve their Lord. In the preceding 
verse, Ephesians v:21, the Apostle writes to church members in 
general: “Subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of 
Christ,” and in I Corinthians x:31, ‘““Whatsoever ye do, do all to 
the glory of God.” He says, in effect, “Look beyond the seen to 
the unseen.” 

V :23: “For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is 
the Head of the church, Himself the Saviour of the body.” Here 
is a passage that men of certain type have hugged to their bosoms; 
they have hidden it in their hearts; it has been their song by day 
and they have meditated thereon “in the night watches.” Let us 
analyze it. ‘The husband is the head of the wife.” In what sense? 
Is the Apostle here teaching that the husband is the head of the 
wife in matters spiritual? At once difficulties appear. We read 


248 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


further : “Christ also is the Head of the church.” Now the church 
is made up of individuals of both sexes. In the average church 
there are more women than men. Is the Headship of Christ 
limited to male members, or does it extend to the entire church? 
If to both sexes, why is He sufficient for the one and insufficient 
for the other? 

Again: If Christ is Head of the wife, and her husband is also 
her head, she is double-headed and must serve two masters. If 
her Divine Head and her human head are not in accord, she is “in 
a strait betwixt two”; whom must she obey? If we answer, she 
must “obey God rather than man,” we at once concede that her 
husband is not her spiritual head. 

Furthermore, if the husband is the spiritual head of his wife, 
what are his functions? Is he the interpreter of the Divine will 
concerning her? Jesus, when speaking of the advent of the Holy 
Spirit, said, “When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall 
guide you into all the truth.” Does the Spirit pass by the wife 
and guide only the husband? 

Is the husband a mediator in his wife’s behalfi—a daysman 
betwixt Christ and her soul? If he is her spiritual head, he has 
functions to perform. It is written: “There is one Mediator 
between God and man”—Christ Jesus. Must there be two media- 
tors between God and woman—Christ and the husband? Was the 
veil of the Temple rent in twain “for men only”? Jesus said, 
“Come unto Me.” Was the invitation limited to the male sex? 
Did He intend that wives should approach Him through their 
husbands? Beet, commenting on this passage, says: “ ‘Head of 
woman’—i.e., immediate head, for Christ is the Head of the whole 
church. Woman is placed by God under the rule and direction of 
the man. This is most conspicuously true of husband and wife. But 
since marriage is but a fulfillment of God’s purpose in the creation 
of the sexes, these words are true of the sexes generally” (p. 181). 

If, as this writer says, the husband is the “immediate head” of 
his wife, is Christ her remote Head? Is He to the husband “a 
God at hand,” and to the wife “a God afar off’? 

And the unmarried woman—the maid or the widow—is she 
privileged above the wife? Does she stand on a level with male 


PAULINE DECRETALS 249 


members? Is Christ her immediate Head? May she come to Him 
in direct approach, or must she ever stand aside because she has 
no intermediary ? 

These questions are not irrelevant; they are all bound up in the 
declaration—“The husband is the head of the wife.” 

Any individual with mind unwarped by prejudice can readily 
see that the husband is not the spiritual head of his wife. Here 
is a realm wherein she stands erect—‘“‘never in bondage to any 
man.” Her husband has no preferential rights in the kingdom of 
her Lord. In Christ Jesus “there can be no male and female,” 
for “all are one.” | 

If we differentiate between the spiritual and the moral, the 
husband is likewise not the head of the wife in the latter realm. 
He may not stay her from the right, nor command her to the 
wrong. Here is a realm sacred to the individual and he may not 
lift hand or voice against her. But one law pervades this domain, 
and it is constitutional—it is inscribed on every doorpost and lintel 
—‘“We must obey God rather than men.” Any intruder here, be 
he potentate or husband, may be defied, and that with Divine 
approval. The Apostle Peter wrote, “Be subject to every ordinance 
of man for the Lord’s sake,” but when he stood before the Council 
in Jerusalem and was straitly charged “to speak henceforth to no 
man” in the name of Jesus, he answered: “Whether it be right in 
the sight of God to hearken unto you rather than unto God, judge 
ye; for we cannot but speak the things we saw and heard,” and 
he walked forth from that Council chamber, undaunted by threat- 
enings, and heralded anew the message of his Lord. 

God never empowered any mortal to act as custodian of another’s 
conscience. Reformers have bled and martyrs have died because 
they would not surrender the right of self-determination in matters 
of religion. Even as the Apostle wrote this Epistle, he was suf- 
fering imprisonment because he would not “be judged by another 
man’s conscience.” 

If the husband is not the head of his wife in matters moral or 
spiritual, his authority over her has well-nigh reached the vanishing 
point. There is nothing left for him to supervise but acts of moral 
indifference, and acts of moral indifference are non-essentials. As 


250 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


soon as an act becomes essential, it takes on moral aspect, and this 
carries it at once into the realm of conscience, and every approach 
to conscience is posted—“No trespassing here.” 

But the husband is further hedged in at every attempt to domi- 
nate his wife. He may not have a free hand in acts of moral 
indifference. In this field of action he comes face to face with 
the rule laid down in verse twenty-one—‘Subjecting yourselves 
one to another in the fear of Christ.” This is a general rule; it 
applies to every member of the church; to husbands as well as 
wives. In writing to the Galatians, the Apostle makes this law 
of mutual concession even stronger. He says: “Through love be 


bondservants (SouAevete) one to another” (Gal. v:13). 

All that is said in Ephesians v:23 concerning the headship of 
the husband applies with equal force to I Corinthians xi:3. 

If the husband had no authority over his wife in matters moral 
or spiritual; if in all else he is bound by the rule laid down in 
verse twenty-one, in what sense was he her head? Jn a legal sense. 
Roman law made the husband the sole and absolute head of his 
wife. His will was her law; from his decision there was no appeal. 
When the Apostle wrote to the Ephesian Christians: “The husband 
is the head of the wife”; “As the church is subject to Christ, so 
also (are) wives to their husbands in everything” (ddd ¢ A 
éxxAnola Obrotdccetar tH XototG, ottws xal yuvatnes tote 
dvéeactv éy navtt), he was making a statement; he was not 
giving a command. A careful reading of the original will reveal 
the fact that the words “Jet” and “be” are not part of the Greek 
text. They were written without warrant into our English ver- 
sions by translators. The Apostle Paul never wrote: “As the 
church is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their hus- 
bands in everything.” He wrote, “As the church is subject to 
Christ, so also [are] wives to husbands in everything.” This is 
the alternate rendering in the Revised Versions—1884 and 1901. 
The verb in the first member of this sentence is in the indicative 
mood, and there is no justification whatever for changing it to the 
imperative when it is carried forward. By doing so the translators 
have transformed a statement into a command. 


PAULINE DECRETALS 251 


“As the church is subject to Christ, so also [are] wives to hus- 
bands in all things.” Such was the status of the wife throughout 
the Roman Empire when the Apostle penned his epistle. Her hus- 
band was her legal head. In making this statement the Apostle 
was not passing judgment on the law of Patria Potestas; he was 
not commending it to future generations; he was citing it in illus- 
tration of a spiritual truth. He was discoursing on the Headship 
of Christ and the obligation that rests upon the church to be in 
all things subject to His will. In illustration thereof he pointed 
to the relationship of husband and wife under the law of the 
Roman Empire. His language was, in part, symbolic. In verse 
thirty-two he says: “This mystery is great: but I speak in regard 
of Christ and the church.” 

Ephesians v:23-30 is particularly involved because of the com- 
mingling of hortative and symbolic language. The Apostle Peter 
found in the writings of “beloved brother Paul some things hard 
to be understood.” If this was true of a contemporary, how much 
more of those who study his messages after many recensions, and 
that at times by scribes who scrupled not to mutilate or rearrange. 
It is a well-known fact that some passages in the Authorized 
Version were rejected by the Revisers, because found to be inter- 
polations. We marvel less at this tampering when we bear in 
mind that the Pauline epistles were not rated on a par with Old 
Testament Writ until the second century. After all, were these 
meddlesome scribes more blameworthy than translators of a subse- 
quent time who manipulated the Sacred Text and made it express 
thought not in the mind of the author—notably passages relating 
to women? 

The fact that the Apostle Paul points to the status of husband 
and wife under the law of Patria Potestas in illustration of Christ’s 
relation to the church, by no means justifies the conclusion that the 
law met with his approbation. Elsewhere he draws comparisons 
from human slavery; e.g., “Ye are not your own, for ye are bought 
with a price”; “He that was called being free, is Christ’s bond- 
servant”; ‘““Be bondservants one to another,” et al. He subscribes 
himself, “A bondservant of Jesus Christ.” In the employment of 


252 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


these figures of speech was he approving human slavery? He 
wrote, “War the good warfare’; “Suffer hardship with me as a 
good soldier of Jesus Christ”; “Put on the whole armor of 
God”; “Fight the good fight of faith,” et al. Was he lauding war- 
fare? He lacks in discrimination who makes such claim. The 
same is true of the individual who maintains that the Apostle Paul, 
in pointing to the status of husband and wife under Roman law, 
in illustration of the Headship of Christ, was applauding the subor- 
dination of the wife. 

V :23: “The husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is 
the head of the church; Himself Saviour of the body.” This last 
clause—“Himself saviour of the body’—has disturbed commenta- 
tors. Taken by itself, the import is evident. Jesus Christ, Saviour 
of His body—the church. It is the connection that perplexes. In 
the associated sentence is parallelism—‘The husband is the head 
of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church,” but how 
about this attached clause—“Himself Saviour of the body’? Is 
the parallelism continued into this latter statement? Is the hus- 
band the Saviour of his wife? Heathen religions have at times so 
taught. Was the Apostle Paul promulgating such doctrine? Few, 
if any, among us are willing to go such lengths. One expositor 
says: “The parallelism fails here.” 

“The husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head 
of the church; Himself Saviour of the body.” There was a sense 
in which the Roman husband was the saviour of his wife. He 
was her substitute; he suffered in her stead. He was wounded 
for her transgressions; he was bruised for her iniquities; the 
chastisement of her peace was upon him, and with his stripes she 
was healed. In the domestic tribunal he was her judge and could 
inflict punishment even to the extent of taking life, but in the 
courts of the state he was her substitute; her “sin-offering,” and 
in his punishment she was justified—he was her saviour. Is there 
parallelism here? Do we not read: “The Lord hath laid on Him 
the iniquity of us all”? “Himself bear our sins in His own body 
on the tree’? “Being now justified by His blood, shall we be 
saved from the wrath through Him.” 


PAULINE DECRETALS 253 


EPHESIANS V:25-33 


“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved -the 
church, and gave Himself up for it; that He mighty sanctify it, 
having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word, that 
He might present the church to Himself a glorious [church], 
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should 
be holy and without blemish. Even so ought husbands also to 
love their own wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his own 
wife loveth himself: for no man ever hated his own flesh; but 
nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as Christ also the church; be- 
cause we are members of His body. For this cause shall a man 
leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and the 
twain shall become one flesh. This mystery is great: but I speak 
in regard of Christ and of the church. Nevertheless do ye also 
severally love each one his own wife as himself; and [let] the 
wife [see] that she fear her husband.” The words in brackets 
are not in the Greek text. They are supplied by translators. 
“The Emphatic Diaglott” renders the latter phrase: “So that she 


may reverence the husband” (4 58 yuvi fva goftattéydvdea). This 


gives force to tye which is disregarded by most translators. A 
transliteration of the passage would be: “The and wife so that she 
may reverence the husband.” This would make the wife’s rever- 
ence for her husband contingent on his behavior toward her. 

Here is an idealistic portrayal of marriage, but notwithstanding 
its loftiness and beauty it has never claimed half as much attention 
as Ephesians v:22-24 and I Corinthians xi:3. The author has 
never heard it read in the pulpit. Seldom is it quoted with exact- 
ness and rarely, if ever, with emphasis. Mankind in general have 
overlooked the Apostle’s injunction to husbands. Had they given | 
serious heed, laws unjust to wives had never marred the lives of 
multitudes of women. 

Ephesians v :25-33, while symbolic of Christ and the church, is 
also a homily on love of the wife. “Husbands love your wives, 
even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself up for it’; 
“Even so ought husbands also to love their own wives as their own 


254 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


bodies”; “He that loveth his own wife, loveth himself”; “Do ye 
also severally love each one his own wife even as Himself.” 

While husbands come under the general rule laid down in verse 
twenty-one, there is here no specific injunctions to submit them- 
selves to their wives. The entire emphasis is laid on love. Now 
aside from conscience, love is the most compelling force in the 
world. Said a lover to his lady: “Your wish is my law.’”’ He spoke 
a verity. A man is ruled by the woman he loves, and he would not 
have it otherwise. It is only when he loves himself the more, that 
he seeks to dominate her. The husband who loves his wife even 
as himself becomes her willing subject. Her wish becomes a law 
he cheerfully obeys. He goes further, and anticipates her desire 
in order to fulfill. The Lord Jesus announced a universal law 
when He said to His disciples: “If he love Me, ye will keep My 
commandments.” P. T. Forsyth, in his treatise, “Marriage: Its 
Ethics and Religion,” says: “Where most love is, there also is 
most obedience.” 

Love is also an impelling force: it prompts to service and to 
sacrifice. Again Jesus said: “Even as the Father loved Me, I also 
have loved you.” And elsewhere, “I am in the midst of you as 
He that serveth.” 

When the Apostle Paul enjoined husbands to love their wives 
even as themselves, he insured their self-submission. Here was 
a case where the major charge included the minor. 


COLOSSIANS I111:18, 19 


Colosse, like Corinth and Ephesus, was a Greco-Roman city. It 
was situated in Phrygia Pacatiana of Asia Minor, and, as the map 
shows, not a great distance from Ephesus. This fact must be 
borne in mind in our study of the passage before us. The simi- 
larity of this Epistle to that of the Ephesians is so marked as to 
be noted by almost every commentator. Dr. Adam Clark says: 
“Everything in the sentiments, order, and diction of the two writ- 
ings corresponds with what might be expected from this circum- 
stance of identity or cognation in their original. In numerous 
instances the verbiage is identical.” It is true that in Ephesians 


PAULINE DECRETALS 255 


the Apostle amplifies his thought, while in Colossians he condenses, 
but, in substance, the charges are the same. 


“Wives, submit yourselves (Snotéccecbe) unto your own hus- 
bands, as it is fit in the Lord” (A. V.). 


“Wives, be in subjection (ixotdscecfe) to your husbands, as it 
is fitting in the Lord” (R. V.). 
The verb here rendered, “submit yourselves,” “be in subjection,” 


is brotacow the same as found in Ephesians v:21. In both in- 
stances it is in the middle voice. But the middle and passive 
terminations are the same. The translator must choose between 
the two. In Ephesians v:21, where the address is to church mem- 
bers in general, the middle rendering is required, and translators 
so recognize. But dependent on this same verb is verse twenty- 
two, where the injunction is to wives. At once the translators, in 
violation of a rule of syntax, substitute the passive for the middle. 
This changes the import. It makes a difference to ‘a man whether 
he lies down, or is knocked down; whether he strikes himself, or 
is struck by an outside force. The physical results may be the 
same, but the psychological are wholly different. 

In Colossians 11:18, the King James translators adopted the 
middle rendering: “Wives submit yourselves.” The Revisers, on 
the other hand, have chosen the passive—‘‘Wives, be in subjec- 
tion.” Circumstances indicate that King James’ translators were 
right and the Revisers wrong. We ask consideration of the fol- 
lowing data: 

The Ephesian and Colossian churches were adjacent to each 
other ; the local conditions were practically the same. The epistles 
to these churches were written at, or about, the same time; by the 
same author; they were forwarded by the same messenger; the 
contents were, to all intents and purposes, the same. Under these 
circumstances, it is reasonable to infer that the injunctions to wives 
in both instances would have the same import. There is no 
apparent reason why the Apostle should discriminate against the 
wives of Colosse. In Ephesians v:21 the middle voice is deter- 
mined by the context; in Ephesians v:22, by the carrying forward 
of the verb; and in Colossians 11:18, by cognation. 


256 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


We reject the rendering of the Revised Version and adopt 
that of the Authorized—“Wives submit yourselves.” This brings 
Colossians iii:18 into line with Ephesians v:22, as the latter should 
be’ translated. 

Not only should the verb in these two passages agree in voice, 
but in both instances it should have the same import. Now in 
Ephesians v:22, the contents of OUxotacow must be measured by 
its contents in verse twenty-one—Here is its iron bedstead. 
‘Yxotécow, in verse twenty-one, signifies a concessional attitude 
toward fellow-Christians; a deferential regard for their wishes. 
As before stated, the yielding here enjoined is mutual and devoid 
of servile import. This was all the Apostle required of the 
Ephesian wives—and by implication, of the Colossian. They were 
to hearken to counsel; listen to advice—in sort, they were to be 
courteous and deferential in their attitude toward their husbands 
—husbands who, under the law, were held responsible for their 
conduct. 

We notice that this verb, bxotdscw, is the only one used by the 
Apostles Paul and Peter in their injunctions to wives, and in such 
instances it always has the middle ending. The Apostle Peter, in 
his reference to Sarah, iii:6, employs the verb bxaxoUw, the pri- 
mary meaning of which is, “To listen, hearken.” The verb 
Unotdoow never appears in the New Testament in relation to 
children or bondservants. 


Colossians 1i1:19, “Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter 
against them.” 

This charge in substance is the same as that of Ephesians 
V :25-33, and all we have said of the latter applies with equal force 
to this injunction to the husbands of Colosse. Dr. Adam Clark, 
in his comments on the relative duties mentioned in this Epistle to 
the Colossians, says: 

“The directions here to wives, husbands, children, parents, serv- 
ants, and masters are so exactly the same in substance with those 
in Ephesians v:22-33 and vi:1-9 that there is no need to repeat 


PAULINE DECRETALS 257 


what has been said on those passages; and to the notes there, the 
reader is requested to refer.” 

In this connection we call attention to comments on Ephesians 
V :25-33, found on pages 243-254. 


THE FIRST EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY 


V:14: “I desire therefore that the younger [widows] marry, 
bear children, rule (olxoSecnotetv) the household, give none OC- 
casion to the adversary for reviling” (R. V.). 

The Authorized Version reads: “I will therefore that the 
younger women marry,” etc. This is so manifestly out of har- 
mony with the context that it is now universally rejected by 
scholars. 

Timothy, Paul’s “true child in the faith,’ was in charge of the 
church at Ephesus during the absence of its founder. During this 
period the Apostle wrote this letter of instructions and forwarded 
it to Timothy. There is much in this Epistle that will claim our 
attention later; for the present we confine our study to v:14. 


The verb dSecrotety is the strongest word for rule in the Greek 
language; “despot,” “despotic,” “despotism,” are its English 
derivatives. Thayer defines the word in its noun form as “uncon- 
trolled power.”’ Now here, in I Timothy v:14, the Apostle Paul 
declares it his will that “the younger widows marry, bear chil- 
dren,” and exercise “uncontrolled power” over the household. No 
wonder that expositors are nonplussed; no wonder they have little 
to say by way of comment. 

An interesting question here is—Who are included in this house- 
hold, over which the wife is to hold despotic sway? Is the hus- 
band himself a member, or does he stand without the pale? There 
would be no difficulty in determining the matter if the Apostle 
had conferred despotic authority on the husband. Under such 
circumstance, commentators would undoubtedly hold the wife to 
be a member of the household. But the Apostle did not so write; 
he inscribed on the pages of Sacred Writ, “for the edification of 
believers,” and to the confusion of commentators: “I desire there- 


258 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


fore that the younger [widows] marry, bear children, rule 


(otxeSecnotety) the household.” 

Not for a moment does the author of this volume entertain the 
thought that the Apostle extended the wife’s sway to her husband. 
The subjugation of the husband is as repellent to our mind as is 
the subjugation of the wife—neither form part of our creed. 

One fact is conclusive proof that the wife’s strong rule was 
limited to children, servants, and other dependents. Nowhere in 
the Apostle’s writings is despotic power conferred upon the hus- 
band. Roman law allowed for such, but not the Apostles Paul 
and Peter. The husband might advise; might counsel and admon- 
ish, but never, under Apostolic ruling, could he impose his will upon 
his wife. She was invested with the right of self-determination. 
It is altogether unlikely the Apostle would confer on the wife 
greater authority over the husband than he was allotted over her. 

“Give none occasion to the adversary for reviling.” The con- 
stant concern of both the Apostles Paul and Peter was that Chris- 
tian converts lead exemplary lives. 


THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO TITUS 


II :4, 5: “That they may teach the young women to be sober, to 
love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, 


keepers at home, good, obedient (dxotascouévas) to their own hus- 
bands, that the word of God be not blasphemed” (A. V.). 

Titus was a Greek convert. At the time this Epistle was written 
he was in charge of the church at Crete. The island was a part 
of the Roman Empire, and domestic relations were determined by 
the law of Patria Potestas. Much that has been said in reference 
to the churches of Corinth, Ephesus and Colossz applies here. 
The local conditions, if’ not identical, were at least similar. The 
Apostle’s instructions relative to the officiality of the church will 
claim attention in the following chapters. 

“That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love 
their husbands.” (This is the only instance in the Bible where 
the wife is enjoined to love her husband.) “To love their children, 
to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home.” 


PAULINE DECRETALS 259 


The rendering of the Authorized Version—‘“keepers at home,” 
is a glaring mistranslation. The Revised Version reads: “workers 
at home.” The word in the Greek is, in some manuscripts— 


olxoueyéc, from ofxoc, “house,” and épyoy “work,” “employ- 
ment,’ “business”; in others it is olxoved¢ —a compound of 


bd 


otxog —“house,” and oteo0¢ —“keeper,” or “guardian.” All de- 
pends on the presence or absence of the one Greek letter—y. In 
the one case the Apostle desires that these younger women be 
industrious housewives; in the other, that they be guardians of the 
home. Some have translated the passage thus: “To love their 
husbands; to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, house- 
keepers,” etc. The rendering, “housekeeper,” is applicable in either 
case; in the first, in attending to the orderly arrangement of the 
home; in the second, in guarding and protecting it from sinister 
influences. Either, and both, are the bounden duty of every wife 
and mother. “A worthy woman looketh well to the ways of her 
household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.” A slovenly house- 
wife is a millstone about her husband’s neck. It is also the sacred 
obligation of the wife and mother to guard her home from con- 
taminating influences. The earning of a livelihood compels the 
frequent absence of husband and father; and it devolves upon the 
wife and mother to stand as sentinel over her household; to ward 
off every foe that would invade her “holy of holies’”—the home. 


“Obedient (bxotaccougvas) to their own husbands” (A. V.). 
“Being in subjection to their own husbands” (R. V.). The word 
here rendered “obedient” in the Authorized Version, and in the 


Revised, “being in subjection,” is the familiar verb, Oxotécow. 
Here again we find it with the middle ending, assuring self-deter- 
mination. The rendering should be—‘“submitting themselves to 
their own husbands.” The writer being the same, and the cir- 
cumstances almost identical, we are justified in the conclusion that 


the verb bxotasow has the same import here as in Ephesians 
V:21, 22, and in Colossians 11:18. The Apostle would have these 
Cretan wives manifest courteous, deferential regard for the wishes 
of their husbands. This is the duty of every wife; it is also the 
reciprocal duty of every husband, as is indicated in Ephesians v:21. 


260 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


“That the word of God be not blasphemed.” We find here the 
same anxious care on the part of the Apostle that these converts 
lead irreproachable lives, as appears in his writings elsewhere, and 
as is manifested in the Epistle of his fellow-Apostle, Peter. It 
was an age of persecution; Christianity was on trial; they were 
surrounded on every hand by argus-eyed enemies, eager to de- 
nounce them for any breach of law or custom. Dr. Ramsay, in 
his “History of the Church in the Roman Empire,” maintains that 
the chief charge against Christians at this particular period was 
that they were disturbers of the social order. He says: “We have 
seen that charges of breaking up the peace of family life formed 
the subject of anxious consideration and advice, both to St. Paul 
and to St. Peter; and we cannot doubt that such charges had often 
been carried into court. The father, husband, or master dealt in 
private with individual members of his family; but he must go 
before the courts in order to punish the person who tampered with 
their beliefs or habits” (pp. 347, 348). Elsewhere he says: “The 


remarkable word &doteteticxotog has never been explained. It 
appears to be a rendering into Greek, of a charge brought against 
the Christians, which had no single term to denote it, and for 
which this bold compound was framed by the writer. I cannot 
doubt that it refers to the charge of tampering with family rela- 
tionships, causing disunion and discord, rousing discontent and 
disobedience among slaves and so on” (p. 295). 

Under these circumstances the keynote of the charge, both on 
the part of the Apostles Paul and Peter, was obedience to law— 
subjection to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake—not 
only to laws that were just, but also to laws that were unjust, so 
long as they did not invade the realm of conscience. He says: 
“We bear all things, that we may cause no hindrance to the Gospel 
of Christ” (1 Cor. ix:12). “Giving no occasion of stumbling in 
anything, that our ministration be not blamed” (II Cor. vi:3). 
“All things are lawful; but all things are not expedient” (I Cor. 
x:23). To the Ephesians, Paul writes: “Look therefore carefully 
how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise; redeeming the time, 
because the days are evil.” 

The Apostle Peter taught the same lesson. Submission even to 


PAULINE DECRETALS 261 


wrongdoing. “If, when ye do well, and suffer, ye shall take it 
patiently, this is acceptable with God” (I Pet. ii:20). The Lord 
Jesus laid down the same rule of obedience to law and non- 
resistance to personal abuse. On one occasion He was in Caper- 
naum. They that received the tribute money came to Peter and 
said, Doth not your Master pay the didrachma? When they were 
come into the house, Jesus said to Peter: “What thinkest thou, 
Simon? The kings of the earth, from whom do they receive toll 
or tribute? from their sons, or from strangers?” And when Peter 
answered : “From strangers,” Jesus said unto him, “Therefore the 
sons are free. But lest we cause them to stumble, go thou to the 
sea, and cast a hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and 
when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a stater; that 
take, and give unto them for Me and thee” (Matt. xvii:25-27). 
On another occasion He said: “If any man would go to law with 
thee, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And 
whosoever shall impress thee to go one mile, go with him twain” 
(Matt. v:39-41). Under Roman law a soldier could impress a 
civilian to accompany him one mile to carry his accoutrement. 
Jesus said, “Go with him twain.” 

It is a remarkable fact that while the Gospels and Epistles were 
written at a period when slavery, in its most terrible aspect, per- 
vaded the Roman Empire; when monsters such as Nero sat upon 
the throne; when the earth was drenched with human gore; when 
the wife was the chattel of her husband, the student of Sacred 
Writ may search the New Testament from cover to cover without 
finding a single pronouncement in direct condemnation of slavery, 
despotism, warfare, or the degradation of woman. Even He Who 
spoke as “never man spoke’ uttered, so far as we know, not one 
syllable in direct protest. The genius of Christianity was against 
these and every other wrong, but the methods of Christianity were 
not revolutionary. 

Christ sent forth His disciples not “to turn the world upside 
down” by inciting to rebellion against legally constituted authority, 
but by broadcasting eternal principles, which would, in time, prove 
themselves “mighty through God to the pulling down of the strong- 
hold of sin.” 


XII 
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH 


PAULINE ATTITUDE 


HE New Testament is a compilation of twenty-seven 
separate documents. Assuming that the Apostle John 


wrote the Apocalypse, and that the author of Hebrews is 
unknown, we have herein the productions of nine different writers. 
Of these, only two—the Apostles Peter and Paul—felt it incum- 
bent upon them to single out women for special legislation. Of 
these two writers, the latter alone has aught to say regarding the 
activities of women in the church. Of the thirteen epistles 
accredited to this Apostle, in only three does he broach the subject, 
and in one of these, in response to a letter of inquiry. The reader 
can readily see that this question, which has loomed large in the 
history of the church, was not an absorbing theme with the writers 
of the New Testament. 

In order to comprehend the Pauline precepts, we must acquaint 
ourselves with the Pauline practice. We cannot afford to set the 
Apostle at variance with himself. His sayings must harmonize 
with his personal behavior; his teachings with his conduct. 

Now aside from his precepts, what attitude did the Apostle Paul 
assume toward the public functioning of women in the church of 
Jesus Christ? For answer we turn to the New Testament records. 

We take first the case of Priscilla, already studied in chapter 
nine of this volume. Dr. Headland, writing in the “Dictionary 
of the Bible,” Vol. IV, p. 103, says: “Prisca, in some way or other, 
occupied a prominent position in the Roman church.” Dr. A. J. 
Gordon, writing in the “Missionary Review,” says: “It is evident 
that the Holy Spirit made this woman Priscilla a teacher of 
teachers.” She was chief instructor to Apollos—‘“a learned man” ; 
and “mighty in the Scriptures”—and this after the Apostle Paul’s 
residence in her home at Corinth. Not only does the New Testa- 

262 


PAULINE ATTITUDE 263 


ment bear ample testimony to her activity in the spread of the 
Gospel, but we find her name inscribed on monuments at Rome 
and a church erected to her memory on the Aventine. 

What does the Apostle Paul have to say to all this? Has he no 
word of reproof to offer? We turn to his letter to the Romans, 
xvi:3, and read: “Salute Prisca and Aquila’’—putting her name 
first—‘‘my fellow-workers in Christ Jesus, who for my life laid 
down their own necks; unto whom not only I give thanks, but 
also all the churches of the Gentiles: and [salute] the church that 
is in their house.” We turn to I Corinthians xvi:19, and find:_ 
“Aquila and Prisca salute you much in the Lord, with the church 
that is in their house.” We turn to his last extant epistle—II 
Timothy iv :19, and find this message: “Salute Prisca and Aquila.” 
According to the Apostle’s own words, here was a woman known 
and honored in “all the churches of the Gentiles.” He not only 
accords her the unusual distinction of naming her before her hus- 
band, but he enrolls her as a “fellow-worker’’—a term he elsewhere 
applies to Timothy, Luke, Mark, Clement, Aristarchus, Justus, and 
Urbanus. It is evident that the Apostle did not regard the activi- 


ties of Priscilla with disfavor. Priscilla is called cuvepy6s. In 
I Cor. xvi:16 the church is enjoined to be in subjection to the 


cuveoyol. 

Another woman standing out prominently in a writing of the 
Apostle was Phoebe. Romans xvi:1, 2, we read: “I commend unto 
you Phcebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is 
at Cenchrea: that ye receive her in the Lord, as becometh saints, 
and that ye assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of you: 
for she hath been a succourer of many, and of myself also” 
CARY): 

“T commend unto you Phcebe our sister, who is a servant of the 
church which is at Cenchrea: that ye receive her in the Lord, 
worthily of the saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever matter 
she may have need of you: for she herself also hath been a helper 
of many, and of mine own self” (R. V.). 

Here we have a striking example of the unreliability of our 
English versions, when the question of the ministry of women is 
at issue. The word here translated “servant” is the Greek word 


264 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


Btdxovoc. It occurs twenty times in the Pauline epistles; sixteen 
times it is translated “minister” (Rom. xiii:4; xv:8; I Cor. ii1:5; 
Ti Cor, uit:6 swiss Sines og (alan em pidibey wie teas 
137,123,225 tv: 7 ed Ness. Tie Ok na yO) wi DReestites tans 
rendered “deacon” (Phil. i:1; I Tim. 111:8, 12). Only once in the 
Pauline writings is the word 8téxovog translated “servant,” and 
that single exception is Romans xvi:1, where the word is used in 
reference to Pheebe. 

Dr. Katharine Bushnell, in her book, ‘““God’s Word to Women,” 
says: “It seems to us that divers weights and measures have been 
employed, occasionally, when translating the utterances of the 
Bible’; and she cites, among other instances, the case before us. 
The author of this volume will go further than Dr. Bushnell, and 
make the statement without qualification—“divers weights and 
measures” have been used in the translation of the Bible. Again 
and again translators have given a word one rendering when 
applied to men, and an entirely different rendering when applied 
to women. Romans xvi:1 is only one instance. Proverbs xx:10 
we read: “Divers weights and divers measures, both of them alike 
are an abomination to the Lord.” 


Why should it be said of Paul thathe was made a d8taxovogc— 
minister? (Eph. 11:7; Col. 1:23); of Tychicus, that he was a 
“Beloved brother and faithful 6:¢x0voc—minister”? (Eph. vi:21; 
Col. iv:7) ; of Epaphras, that he was a faithful 8:¢x0voc—minister ? 
(Col. 1:7); of Timothy, that he was God’s 8:éxovoc—minister ? 
and of Phcebe, that she was a 3taxovoc—servant? Dr. James M. 
Gray, in commending Dr. Bushnell’s book, says: “It is time a 
woman should interpret what the Bible says about women.” 

Bishop Lightfoot, commenting on Romans xvi:1, also on I 
Timothy iii:11, says: “If the testimony borne in these two passages 
to a ministry of women in the Apostolic times had not been thus 
blotted out of our English Bibles, attention would probably have 
been directed to the subject at an earlier date, and our English 
church would not have remained so long maimed of one of her 
hands.” 

Dr. A. J. Gordon, in the article before referred to, says: ‘“Dea- 


PAULINE ATTITUDE 265 


coness has timidly crept into the margin of the Revised Version, 
thus adding prejudice to slight by the association which this name 
has with ‘High Church sisterhoods and orders.’ ” 

We object to the translation ‘“deaconess” on the ground that no 


such word as 8taxdyicca occurs in the New Testament. Bishop 
Ellicott says: “The proposed rendering ‘deaconess’ is open to the 
objection that it introduces into the New Testament the technical 
name 8taxdvtcow which is of later origin.” 


One of the earliest appearances of the word staxéyvtcoe in church 
literature is in the Apostolic Constitutions. Dr. J. M. Ludlow in 
his volume, “Woman’s Work in the Church,” p. 21, says: “The 
‘Apostolic Constitutions’ on this subject, I must say, appear to 
me, quite in accordance with the view now perhaps most gen- 
erally entertained, that they represent the condition of the Greek 
Church at some period of the second century.” 

Dr. Katharine Bushnell comments thus: “It was not until the 
middle of the third century that an order of women called ‘Dea- 
conesses’ became common in the churches of the East; they were 
scarcely ever known in the early centuries in the Western branch 
of the church.” 

Every member of the Revision Committee was familiar with 
these facts when it wrote in the margin the word “deaconess.” 


Atéxovoc—“deacon,” is of common gender and applies to either 
male or female. Phoebe was a 8taxovoc. But Paul, Tychicus, 


Epaphras and Timothy were also 8téxover. Why did not the 
translators rendered thus: “I Paul was made a deacon”’? “Tychicus, 
the beloved brother and faithful deacon”? Epaphras, “who is a 
faithful deacon of Christ”? Timothy, ‘“God’s deacon”? In every 


instance in the Pauline writings where the word 8tdxovo¢g is used 
in connection with a proper noun, the translators pass over the 
rendering “deacon” and adopt “minister’—except in the case 
of Phoebe. Why an exception here? In the three instances where 
the translators have rendered “deacon’—Philippians i:1; I Tim- 
othy i11:8, 12, —dtdxovoc is used apart from proper names and 
in reference to groups. 
We quote from Kurtz’s “Church History,” Vol. I, p. 188: 


266 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


“At the time of the Didache which knows nothing of a subordi- 
nation of presbyters under the bishop (indeed like Phil. i:1, it 
makes no mention of presbyters), this relation was one of 
thoroughly harmonious coordination and cooperation. In the thir- 
teenth chapter the exhortation is given to choose only faithful and 
approved men as bishops and deacons ‘for they discharge for you 


thy Aettoveytay thy TOOgHTMY xal StdacxaAwy and so they rep- 


resent along with those the tettuyuévot among you.’ The service 
of prophets, according to the Didache, was preéminently that of 
the dpxteeets, and so there was entrusted to them the consecration 
of the elements in the Lord’s Supper. This service the bishops 
and deacons discharged, inasmuch as, in addition to their own 
special duties as presidents of the congregation, charged with its 
administration and discipline, they were required in the absence 
of prophets to conduct the worship.” 


That women officiated as “ministers” in the early Christian 
church is apparent from the report of the younger Pliny to the 
Emperor Trajan, about 104 A.p. He says: “However I thought 
it necessary to apply the torture to some young women who were 
called ministers” (ministrae). In both the old Italian Version 
and in the Vulgate, Phoebe is called a “muinistra.’ “Origen 
(184-253 A.D.) in commenting on Phcebe and her mission, speaks 
of the ministry of women in the church as both existing and 
necessary” (Ludlow’s “Woman’s Work in the Church,” p. 24). 

Not only is the translation “deaconess” inexcusable in the case 
before us, but not even the rendering “deacon” meets the full 
requirements. In the second verse of this chapter it is said of 


Phoebe that she “was made” (éyevn§n) a moocta&ttc. Here we have 
the first aorist passive form of the verb. This is incongruous 
with the rendering of both the Authorized and Revised Versions. 
Every candid student of the original text must realize this. Why 
should it be said of Phoebe that “she was made” a “succourer,”’ 
or that “she was made” “a helper’? The translators recognized 
the inappropriateness of such rendering, and, without warrant, 
changed to the active form—‘“She hath been a succourer” (A.V.). 


“She hath been a helper” (R.V.). Phoebe was made (éyevn6n) 


PAULINE ATTITUDE 267 


a Teoctatic. The office, whatever it was, had been bestowed upon 
her by an outside agent. 


The word xpoctatt signifies, “a woman set over others.” 
(Thayer’s “Greek-English Lexicon,” p. 549); it is the feminine 
of the noun tpoctdty from the verb tootctynut, which means 
“to set over’; “to be over”; “to superintend”; “to preside over.” 
We have the participle form—rpotctdguevoc—in Romans xii:8, 
and the translators render, “He that ruleth.’ We have the same 
word in I Thessalonians v:12: “Know them that labor among you 
and are over you” (nootetasévous); also in I Timothy v:17, “The 
elders that rule(xpocotHte¢) well.” Dr. Hodge, in his commentary 
on Romans, p. 618, says: “The word properly means, one who is 
placed over, who presides, or rules.” 

But here in Romans xvi:2, it is recorded of Phcebe that “she 


was made a Tooctatts —in other words, she was constituted a 


Teoctatic— “a woman set over others’—by some authority apart 
from herself. At once a difficulty presents itself. Phoebe was 
a woman, and it would never do to have a woman exercising ec- 
clesiastical authority over others. But the translators rose to the 
occasion. Instead of giving cpootatts its primary signification— 
“a woman set over others”; they went far afield and fastened on 
the word “succourer.” ~ The Revisers, more blameworthy still, 
adopted the rendering “helper’—a word of not even distant kin- 


ship to mpoctaéttc. Some commentators have suggested “pa- 
troness” as a happy solution of the difficulty. Would translators 
have resorted to such makeshifts if Phoebe had been a man? If 
a masculine name had been inserted here, would they not have 
hailed its possessor as a bishop, or at least as a “ruling elder”? 
But Phoebe was a woman, so at once, out of the bag are brought 
the “divers weights and measures.” 

Concerning the rendition “patroness,” Dr. Hodge says: “There 
is very slight foundation for the ascription of this meaning to 
the word in the New Testament, and as it is elsewhere used in 
its ordinary sense (I Thess. v:13; I Tim. vi:17) tt is commonly 
understood of rulers. Some take it in reference to rulers in gen- 


268 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


eral, civil or ecclesiastical; others, of church rulers or elders.” “It 


is more common, therefore, to understand meotcta&uevoc, of any one 
who exercises authority in the church” (Hodge on Romans, p. 
618). 

“The earliest regulation concerning ‘Patrons’ in the West is that 
of the Council of Orange, 441 a.p.” (“Christian Antiquities”). 

The Reverend J. F. Denham, M.A., F.R.S., St. John’s Col- 
lege, Cambridge, England, commenting on the term “priest,” says: 
“The English word is generally derived from the New Testament 
term presbyter (elder), the meaning of which is, however, es- 
sentially different from that which was intended by the ancient 
terms. It would come nearer, if derived from mpotcthnyt or 
Toototawat, ‘to preside,’ etc. It would then correspond to Aris- 
totle’s definition of a priest, tv med¢ tods Meods xUoetoc, ‘pre- 
siding over things relating to the gods’ (Polit. iii:14), and with 
the very similar one in Hebrews v:1, “Every high priest taken 
from among men, is constituted on behalf of men, with respect to 
their concerns with God (t& mec tov Ocdy), that he may repre- 
sent both gifts and sacrifices for sins.’ ” 

Phoebe was a teoctatic. This is the feminine of the noun 
moootatyn; from the verb moootctyur. According to Dr. Denham, 
Teototyut embodies very closely the sense of the term “priest.” 

The New Testament word for “bishop” is éxloxonos. It signi- 
fies “overseer.”” Now Pheebe “presided over many.’ If she were 
a “ruling elder,” her jurisdiction would be limited in the main to 
a congregation. It requires the acumen of translators and com- 
mentators to exclude her from the bishopric, and to register her 
“a servant” or “a deaconess.” 

Instead of Phoebe being a “servant” of the church at Cenchre, 
or even a “deaconess,” as translators would have us believe, she 
was a minister (8téxov0s¢) even as Paul, Timothy, Tychicus, 
Epaphras and Apollos were ministers (8téxovot) instead of being 
made or constituted a “succourer” or “helper” or “patroness,” 
she was made a “ruler over many,’ and that by the Apostle 
Paul’s appointment, for he says, xat éuod adto0—“and of me 


“PAULINE ATTITUDE 269 


myself.’ This we take to be the genitive of source or agent. 
Phoebe received her appointment from the hands of Paul him- 
self; he recognized her authority and enjoined upon others to do 
the same. Her visit to Rome was on church matters, and the 
Apostle entreated the Christian community of that city to “re- 
ceive her in the Lord worthily of saints,’ and to stand by her 
(xaeactite) “in whatsoever business” (teéyyatt) she might under- 
take. 

Dr. A. C. Headlam, writing in the “Dictionary of the Bible’ 
(Hastings), p. 850, says of Phoebe: “The fact that she went 
with a letter of recommendation suggests that she was traveling 
in the service of the church.” “The words by which she is in- 
troduced (cuvtctynut se buiv), imply a formal introduction to the 


Roman community.” “The description of her as mpoctdétic, sug- 
gests that she was a person of some wealth and position. The 
word again is probably technical; it implies legal representative.” 

Here was a woman who was minister of the church at Cen- 
chrea, the seaport of Corinth, only nine miles from that opulent city. 
She exercised authority “over many,” and her appointment was 
from the hand of the Apostle himself. Instead of rebuking her 
for unsexing herself, he gives her a letter of introduction to the 
Christian community at Rome and charges the church to “stand 
by her” in any business in the transaction of which she needed 
assistance. “The term used in the Greek is a legal one, hence 
it is supposed that some kind of legal business called her to 
Rome” (“Peoples’ Commentary”). 


Another woman whose name stands out with distinction in this 
sixteenth chapter of Romans is Junia. In the seventh verse we 
read: “Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow- 


prisoners, who are of note among the apostles (A.V). (0% ttvé¢ 


elory éxtonmot év toto drootéAotc). Commenting on this passage, 
Dr. Gordon says: “As a woman is named among the deacons in 
this Chapter, so it is more than probable that one is mentioned 
among the apostles. Is Junia a feminine name? So it has been 


commonly held. But the év tot¢ axootéAots with which it stands 


270 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


connected has led some to conclude that it is Junias, the name 
of a man. This is not impossible, but Chrysostom, who as a 
Greek Father, ought to be taken as high authority, makes this 
frank and unequivocal comment on this passage: ‘How great is 
the devotion of this woman, that she should be counted worthy of 
the name of an Apostle.’ ” 

Chrysostom lived in the fourth century and ranked among the 
most learned of the Greek Fathers. His comment in detail is as 
follows: “Indeed to be an Apostle at all is a great thing; but to 
be even amongst those of note; just consider what a great en- 
comium this is. But they of note, owing to their works and their 
achievements—Oh! how great is the devotion of this woman, that 
she should be even counted worthy the appellation of Apostle.” 

Bishop Lightfoot says: “It is doubtful if there was such as a 
name as Junias, while Junia was a common name among the 
women of Rome.” Dr. Hodge says: “It is commonly taken as 
a female name.” Dr. A. C. Headlam says of Andronicus and 
Junia: “They were distinguished among the Apostles, a phrase 
which probably means that they were distinguished members of 
the Apostolic body, the word Apostle being used in its wider sense.” 
He says further: “Curiously enough Chrysostom does not con- 
sider the idea of a female Apostle impossible.” 

If the individual here spoken of had been a man, the name 
would have been Junius—not Junias. In such case the accusative 
ending “‘ayv,” as in the text (’louvtav) would be incorrect. 

The Authorized Version renders this name as feminine—Junia. 
The Revisers, notwithstanding the weight of evidence to the con- 
trary, make it masculine—Junias—coining a name which neither 
they nor their fathers knew—no, nor yet the Romans. 

“Of note among the apostles” (oftivés elory éxtonuot gy totg 


droctéAotc), This means one of two things. Either that Junia 
was an apostle of note, or that she was held in high esteem by the 
apostles. The fact that the preponderance of testimony points 
to Junia as a woman would at once induce some to adopt the 
second explanation. One expositor makes frank confession on 
this point. He says: “If the person here spoken of was a woman, 


PAULINE ATTITUDE 271 


we must adopt the second view, because a woman could not be an 
apostle.” He first asswmes that a woman could not be an apostle, 
then makes his exegesis conform to this assumption. Bigg, in 
his commentary, comments thus: “Some think he [Paul] speaks 
of Andronicus and Junias (Rom. xvi:7) as apostles, but the 
second name is more probably Junia, and the sense is uncertain.” 
Redactors stand ready with their “divers weights and measures” 
and the import of the clause—Of note among the apostles,’ is 
dependent on the sex of this second individual. 

Aside from Romans xvi:7, we know from church history that 
one woman at least was called an apostle. In the “Acts of Paul 
and Thecla”’—a document quoted as early as the second century 
to prove woman’s right to baptize—Thecla is called an apostle. 
Of this ancient writing, Ramsay in his “Church History” says: 
“The ‘Acta Pauli et Theklae’ goes back ultimately to a document 
of the first century.” ‘“Thecla belonged to one of the noblest 
families of Iconium.” He says further: “The ‘Acta Pauli et 
Theklae’ is the only extant literary work which throws light on 
the character of popular Christianity in Asia Minor during the 
period we have been studying (50-170 a.p.). Thecla became the 
type of the female Christian teacher, preacher and baptizer, and 
her story was quoted as early as the second century as a justifica- 
tion of the right of women to teach and to baptize.” 

Dr. Ramsay also declares that numerous Mss. of the “Acta 
Pauli et Theklae” are extant “including versions in Greek, Latin, 
Syriac, Arabic and Slavonic.” He says: “Prof. Rendel Harris 
told me that he had seen at Mount Sinai eight or nine Mss.,” 
and adds significantly, “In process of time, the objectional features 
were toned down and eliminated, so that in extant Mss. not a 
single trace remains of Thecla administering the rite of baptism 
to others (“Church in the Roman Empire,” pp. 375, 376). 

The term “apostle” was not confined to the Twelve. Paul 
was an apostle, but he was not of the Twelve; Barnabas is called 
an apostle (Acts xiv:14); James, the Lord’s brother, is called 
an apostle (Gal. i:19); Matthias was chosen an apostle (Acts 
1:26) ; Epaphroditus is called an apostle (Phil. ii:25) ; II Corin- 


272 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


thians viii :23, it is said of certain brethren that they were apostles 
of the churches. 
The foregoing considerations, together with the fact that in the 


Greek we have the spherical Dative (év tot¢ &xootéAot¢) determine 
us in favor of the first view, viz., that Junia was an apostle of 
note. 

Here was a woman holding highest office in the New Testa- 
ment Church. Instead of administering reproof, the Apostle 
Paul sends her greetings. 


In this sixteenth chapter of Romans, ten women are mentioned. 
The names of eight are given. Phcebe, “a minister of the church 
at Cenchree”’; Priscilla, a “fellow-worker”; Mary, “who bestowed 
much labor’ on the Christians at Rome; Junia, “of note among 
the apostles”; Tryphaena and Tryphosa, who “labored in the 
Lord”; “Persis, the beloved, which labored much in the Lord”; 
and Julia. The Apostle also sends greetings to the mother of 
Rufus, and the sister of Nereus. 

Now we call attention to the fact that of the eight women whose 
names appear in this sixteenth chapter of Romans, seven are said to 
be actively engaged in Gospel service. What were their functions? 
We have already studied the cases of Phceebe, Priscilla and Junia, 
but how about Mary, Tryphena, Tryphosa and Persis? Did 
they hold official positions in the church, or were they laywomen? 
Commentators have a convenient method of disposing of all such 
cases. They write after each name, “She was probably a dea- 
coness”’, ignoring the indisputable evidence that there was no 
such functionary in the New Testament Church. There were 
male and female deacons, but no deaconesses. The latter was an 
outgrowth of the second century, when prejudice had relegated 
woman to the background. 

We call attention to a fact which readers may verify by a study 
of commentaries. It is quite the custom of expositors to write 
after the name of a man who stands out with any degree of prom- 
inence in the Pauline epistles, words such as these—‘Tradition 
holds that he was bishop of”—naming the diocese; while after the 
name of every woman whose activities are mentioned with ap- 


PAULINE ATTITUDE 273 


proval they register the refrain—“She was probably a deaconess.” 

The “Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopedia” devotes almost 
an entire column to a biographical sketch of Aquila, ending with 
these words: “The Greeks call Aquila bishop and apostle, and 
honor him on July 12. The festival of Aquila and Priscilla is 
placed in the Roman Calendar, where he is denoted Bishop of 
Heraclea, on July 8.” This same Encyclopedia dismisses Priscilla 
—the more prominent character of the two—with a mention in 
seven lines in which are these words: “Wife of Aquila, and 
probably like Phoebe, a deaconess.” 

Let us note what the Apostle Paul has to say about the four 
women whose names are yet before us: v. 6, “Salute Mary who 
bestowed much labor (moAA& éxontacev) on you” (R.V.). The 
Authorized Version reads: “Greet Mary, who bestowed much 
labor on us.” 

J. J. Moss, rejecting the Revised rendering and adopting the 
Authorized, edifies his readers thus: “She made and mended, 
cooked and washed for the Apostles’ (“Criticism and Exegesis of 
Scripture,” p. 162). 

It must be disconcerting to those who incline to such view to 
learn that the earlier manuscripts read, not “us,” but “you’’—that 
is on the church at Rome. Surely the erudite exegete just cited 
would not hold that Mary “made and mended, cooked and washed” 
for the entire congregation. Humanitarian consideration forbids 
such conclusion. 


“Salute Mary who labored much (moAkd& éxorlacty) for you” 


(ets bua). The word here rendered “labored much,” or as 
in our English Versions, “bestowed much labor,’ is the Greek 


verb xomtéw—noun form x6n0¢. It occurs in I Corinthians xv:10, 


where the Apostle Paul says: “I labored (éxoxtac«) more abun- 
dantly than they all”; also in the following passages: John 
iv:38: “I sent you to reap that whereon ye have not 


labored (xexomtaxate); others have labored (xexomtaxacty) and 


_ye have entered into their labor” (xémov); I Timothy v:17: “Let 
the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, espe- 


cially those who labor (xoxt@yte¢) in the word and in teaching”; 


274 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


I Thessalonians v:12: “We beseech you, brethren, to know them 


that labor (xomt@vta%>¢) among you, and are over you in the Lord and 
admonish you; and to esteem them exceeding highly in love for 
their work’s sake” ; Galatians iv:11: “I am afraid of you, lest by any 


means I have bestowed labor (xexomfaxa) upon you in vain” ; Colos- 


sians 1:29: “Whereunto I labor (xox) also, striving, according to 
His working, Who worketh in me mightily.” Now in all these 


cases and others that might be cited, xomttaw, is used, according to 
Dr. Joseph Henry Thayer, to signify “The toilsome efforts of teach- 
ers in proclaiming and promoting the kingdom of God and Christ.” 
In I Corinthians xvi:16, we have this Pauline injunction: “That 


ye also be in subjection (Srotécoy8e) unto such, and to every one 


that helpeth in the work and laboreth” (xom6vett). This would 
indicate that the laborers here spoken of were persons exercising 
authority over others. This was certainly so in the case of Paul; 
of the ruling and teaching elders mentioned in I Timothy v:17, of 
the rpootatart of I Thessalonians v:12, and also of the apostles to 
whom Jesus spoke in John iv:38. But how about Mary who la- 
bored much for the church at Rome? J. J. Moss says: “She made 
and mended, cooked and washed for the Apostles.’’ Commentators 
in general tell us that “she was probably a deaconess.” Dr. Har- 
low Bates calls attention to the fact that “inscribed sepulchral 
stones unearthed from her tomb” accredit the claim that the 
“Mary” mentioned in Romans xvi, as laboring much, “was the 
bishop or pastor of the church of Beretus” (Beirut). 

V:12. “Salute Tryphzna and Tryphosa who labor (xoxtwcac) 


in the Lord. Salute Persis the beloved, which labored (éxottacty) 
much in the Lord.” Here again, in the case of these three women, 


we have the verb xontaw—with the added clause—“In the Lord.” 
It seems to the author that only the most wilful prejudice can 
blind the mind to the fact that these women were propagandist of 
the Gospel—either teaching elders, evangelists or preachers. That 
there were such in the New Testament church will appear in our 
later study. 

Philippians iv:3. “I exhort Euodia, and I exhort Syntyche to be 


PAULINE ATTITUDE 275 


of the same mind in the Lord. Yea, I beseech thee also, true yoke- 
fellow, help these women, for they labored with me in the gospel, 
with Clement also, and the rest of my fellow-workers, whose names 
are in the book of life.” 

Here are two women—Euodia and Syntyche—eminent in the 
church at Philippi. McGriffert, in his “The Apostolic Age,” tells 
us that their names occur frequently in the inscriptions—in Gruter 
and Muratori. He says: “The English Version treats the first as 
a man’s name, and others have in like manner interpreted the 
second. Noimstance however of either Euodias or Syntyches have 
been found in the mscriptions.’ Bishop Lightfoot, says: “Two 
female names are clearly required here, as there is nothing else in 
the sentence to which adtat¢ can be referred. Euodia and Syn- 
tyche appear to have been women of rank, possibly deaconesses in 
the Philippian church’ (Commentary on Philippians). 

He says further: “It may, I think, be gathered from St. Luke’s 
narrative that her (woman) social position was higher in this 
country [Macedonia] than in most parts of the civilized world.” 
“The extant Macedonian inscriptions seem to assign to the sex a 
higher social influence than is common among the civilized nations 
of antiquity. In not a few instances a matronymic takes the place 
of the usual patronymic.” “The active zeal of the women in this 
country is a remarkable fact, without a parallel in the Apostle’s 
history elsewhere, and only to be compared with their prominence 
at an earlier date in the personal ministry of our Lord” (“Intro- 
duction to Church of Philippi,” by Lightfoot, p. 57). 

Gore, in his commentary on the “Epistle to the Ephesians,” p. 
228, says: “In the early Christian Church the influence of women 
was put to far nobler uses than in Asiatic cities.” 

Euodia and Syntyche were prominent in the church at Philippi— 
a city of Macedonia. Of these women the Apostle says: “They 


labored with me in the gospel’ (év t@ ebayyeAtw). Here is a 
particularly strong expression. Of all the individuals whose names 
appear in the Pauline writings, of only one, aside from these 
two women, is it said that he or she labored with the Apostle “Jn 
the gospel’”—and that one is Timothy. In this same Epistle, second 
chapter, twenty-second verse, we read: “But ye know the proof 


276 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


of him, that as a child (serveth) a father, he served (é30UAeucey) 
with me in the Gospel” (cig td edVayyéAtov); but even here the 
Apostle does not employ the spherical Dative, as in the case of 
Euodia and Syntyche. There is a further difference. In his 
reference to Timothy he uses the verb—éovAdéw—which means 
to serve under the direction of another; while in relation to Euodia 


and Syntyche he employs the first aorist active of cuva0Xéw which 
signifies—“To labor together with.’ In I Thessalonians iii:2, the 
Apostle writes of Timothy in these words: “Our brother and God’s 
minister in the Gospel.’ Here, as in the case of Euodia and 
Syntyche, he uses the spherical Dative—év t@ edayyeAty. 
These women labored “together with” the Apostle Paul in the 
sphere of the Gospel, and he beseeches his “true yoke-fellow” to 


“take hold together’ (suvkaydavw) with them. Bishop Lightfoot 
says: “The rendering adopted by the English version, ‘help those 
women which labored,’ etc., is obviously incorrect.” 

The exegesis that would make this an appeal to effect, if pos- 
sible, a reconciliation between these two women is the most sense- 
less and inane imaginable. It certainly would never have been 
offered in seriousness except for an ardent desire to get rid of 
two women who evidently occupied a very prominent place in the 
church at Philippi, and who labored with Paul “in the Gospel.” 

The Rev. Dr. W. K. Brown says: “The term ‘help’ indicates 
a similarity in the labors of the males and females. And the 
charge is, ‘help those women,’ which being given to a man, fully 
confirms the associate labor of men and women” (“Gunethics,” 
p. 100). 

After the names of these two women—foremost in the church 
at Philippi, associates with the Apostle in the spread of the Gospel 
—commentators have written: “They were probably deaconesses.” 

In Chapter IX we called attention to the fact that when the 
Apostle Paul was on his last recorded journey to Jerusalem, he 
tarried “many days” at the house of Philip the evangelist, who re- 
sided at Cesarea. “Now this man had four daughters, virgins, 
which did prophesy” (Acts xxi:9). Here was an opportunity 
for the Apostle Paul to show to his own, and to succeeding gen- 


PAULINE ATTITUDE 277 


erations his disapproval of the public ministry of women, but Luke 
makes no such entry in the narrative. There is no intimation of 
dissatisfaction on the part of the Apostle. In the cases that have 
come under our review, either by greetings to the individuals or 
in messages to the churches, he manifested approbation. In prac- 
tice he measured up to the rule announced in I Corinthians xi:11, 
and in Galatians 111:28—‘‘Neither is the woman without the man, 
nor the man without the woman in the Lord’; “There can be no 
male and female; for ye all are one in Christ Jesus.” 


XITI 
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH (ContTiInvep) 


PAULINE MANDATES 


4 \HERE is no probability that any reader of this volume will 
take issue with us when we affirm that the Apostle’s prac- 
tice and precept must parallel each other. He must not 

be at cross-purposes with himself. He must be consistent. 

Before studying in detail the Pauline precepts relative to 
woman’s activities in the church, let us find their range; let us 
ascertain their compass; let us measure their projectile force. 
Was the Apostle speaking to the churches of the Roman Empire, 
or was he broadcasting laws for the churches of the future? Here 
is a vital question, and it must be answered—and answered to the 
satisfaction of the present generation. It was General Fisk who 
said: “No question is settled until it is settled right.” Look 
through the files of the Christian church, covering a period of 
almost two thousand years, and you meet one oft-recurring ques- 
tion—“It would not down,’—and that question is before the 
ecclesiastical assemblages of today, and it will never be settled 
“until it is settled right’—that question is the status of woman 
in the church of Jesus Christ. 

Foregoing, for the time being, the matter of translations, the 
controversy over woman’s position in the church has centered in 
the main about this one point—were the Pauline rulings local 
or were they general in their application? Regardless of what the 
answers of the past have been, we present the question anew to 
our readers. 

To aid us in the solution of this problem, let us consider some 
other laws laid down in these epistles and the attitude of the 
church concerning them. Take for example a proviso in I Timothy 
111:2, 12; v:9; Titus 1:6. The Apostle here expressly rules against 
elevating to office in the church persons who had contracted a 

278 


PAULINE MANDATES 279 


second marriage. He says: “The bishop therefore must be with- 
out reproach, the husband of one wife,” etc. “Let deacons be 
husbands of one wife,’ etc. “That thou shouldest set in order 
the things that were wanting, and appoint elders in every city, as 
I gave thee charge: if any man is blameless, the husband of one 
wife,” etc. 

At the time the Apostle wrote there was in both Greece and 
Rome a strong prejudice against second marriages. There is no 
ground for believing that Paul himself entertained such sentiment, 
but he was careful not to run counter to public opinion in this 
matter. In I Corinthians x:32, he says: “Give no occasion of 
stumbling, either to Jews, or to Greeks, or to the church of God: 
even as I also please all men in all things, not seeking mine own 
profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.” 

Some have endeavored to evade the conclusion that the Apostle 
here prohibits the election or appointment of persons of second 
marriage to office in the church, but the evidence is overwhelmingly 
against them. Any other explanation lays the New Testament 
church open to the charge of tolerating polygamy and loose 
divorces. We subjoin some testimony from ancient documents 
on this question: 

Origen (186-253 A.D.) says: “Neither bishop, priest, deacon 
nor widow must be twice married.” He here speaks of the 
presbyterial widow. ‘The ordination of twice married men was 
forbidden by the Apostolical Canons (Canon xvii), and Constitu- 
tions (11:2, vi:17), and by all the synods that dealt with the sub- 
ject except those held among the Nestorians. 

In “Christian Antiquities’ (Smith and Cheetham), Vol. II, 
p. 1486, we have this record: “The regulations in regard to 
the marriage of candidates for orders were governed by the 
Pauline injunction pr&¢ yuvatnds &vdee. (I Tim. iii:2, 12; Titus 
i:6). As to the interpretation of that injunction, there appears to 
have been a consensus of opinion. It excluded those who having 
lost one wife, had married another.” “The Western rule rigidly 
excluded from the priesthood all who had married a second wife, 
whether the first marriage had taken place before or after bap- 
tism.” 


280 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


Tertullian (150-226 A.D.) urged as an argument against second 
marriages that: “The Apostolic injunctions forbid the twice mar- 
ried to be bishops, nor suffer a widow to be received to (or 
selected for) ordination—allegi in ordinationem—except she has 
been the wife of one husband only; for the altar of God must be 
exhibited without spot” (Ad Ux; Book I, C. 7). 

So strong was the prejudice against second marriages in the 
early church that “The Council of Neoczsarea, 314 A.p. forbade 
priests from honoring with their presence the festivities customary 
on such occasions; as those who married a second time were 
subject to penance,’ and the Council of Laodicea—352 A.p.— 
“Deemed it a matter of indulgence to admit to communion those 
who conducted a second marriage” (“Sacerdotal Celibacy,” p. 24). 

“Although the church forbore to prohibit absolutely the repeti- 
tion of matrimony among the laity, it yet at an early, though 
uncertain period, imitated the rule enforced on the Flamen Dialis, 
and rendered it obligatory on the priesthood, thus for the first 
time drawing a distinct line of separation between the great body 
of the faithful and those who officiated as ministers of Christ. 
It thus became firmly and irrevocably established that no ‘Diga- 
mus, or husband of a second wife, was admissible to holy orders. 
As early as the time of Tertullian we find the rule formally ex- 
pressed by him, and he even assures us that the whole structure 
of the church was based upon the single marriages of its ministers.” 
“This was the formal rule of the church as enunciated in the 
‘Apostolic Constitutions and Canons’” (“Sacerdotal Celibacy,” 
Pp. 25, 26). 

The testimony along this line is voluminous. For further proof 
the reader is referred to the “Apostolic Constitutions,” vi, xvii, 
XVili, XIX, XXVIi. 

Bishop Ellicott says: “We decide in favor of (c. b.) and con- 
sider the Apostle to declare the contraction of a second marriage © 
to be a disqualification for the office of an éxtcxomo¢g or dtd&xovoc. 
(“Pastoral Epistles,” pp. 56, 57). 

Blackstone, the great English jurist, says: “In the canon law, 
bigamy was the marrying of a second wife after the death of the 
first, or once marrying a widow. This disqualified a man for 


PAULINE MANDATES 281 


orders, and holding ecclesiastical offices.” Shakespeare uses the 
word in the latter sense in “Richard IIT.” 

Notwithstanding the irrefutable testimony available along this 
line, we have even at this late day the ludicrous spectacle of men 
who have contracted a second marriage—some even a third— 
sitting in the councils of the church and voting against admitting 
women to official positions on the ground that the Apostle Paul 
said: “Let women keep silence in the churches: for it is not per- 
mitted unto them to speak’; “I permit not a woman to teach, nor 
to have dominion over a man.” If the church of today enforced 
the rule laid down by the Apostle Paul in I Timothy i1i:2, 12, and 
Titus 1:6, a goodly proportion of its ministers would be unfrocked 
and official boards would undergo many changes. Centuries ago 
the church shelved this mandate of the Apostle on the ground that 
it was a temporary regulation and local in its application. 

Another law laid down by the Apostle and rigidly adhered to 
in the New Testament Church is found in I Corinthians vi:1-6. 
Here the Apostle is even stern in his utterance: “Dare any of you, 
having a matter against his neighbor, go to law before the un- 
righteous, and not before the saints?” In the primitive church 
differences between fellow-Christians were adjudicated “out of 
court,’ by a church tribunal. How is it today? How many re- 
ligious bodies conform to the Pauline requirement? For cen- 
turies the law has been in discard on the plea that circumstances 
are wholly different. 

Another mandate of the Apostle equally neglected is sonia in 
I Timothy ii:8, “I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lift- 
ing up holy hands.” It was both a Jewish and a heathen custom 
to pray with outstretched hands. We have references to this 
attitude in I Kings viii:22; Psalms xxviii:2, xliv:20, Ix111:4, 
CxXxxiv :2, cxli:2; Neh. viii:2. Aristotle says: “All we of human 
kind stretch forth our hands to heaven when we pray.” Now 
the Apostle Paul enjoined this posture in prayer. Clement of 
Alexandria, 192 A.p., and his contemporary Tertullian, mention 
this custom as prevalent among the early Christians. Origen says: 
“We ought without doubt in prayer prefer the stretching forth of 
the hands and the lifting up of the eyes.” How do the churches 


282 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


of today regard this apostolic injunction? It is needless for us 
to say that a minister who would assume this posture in the 
modern pulpit would be deemed eccentric and would be ousted 
by his congregation; yet this appointment of the Apostle lies in 
juxtaposition with his other ordainment: “Let a woman learn in 
quietness with all subjection” ; which latter the ecclesiastical courts 
of the past have ruled, was given to the race in perpetuity. 

Another custom of the primitive church was “feet-washing.” 
That the Apostle Paul approved this practice is evident in his 
charge to Timothy: “Let none be enrolled as a widow under 
threescore years old, the wife of one man, well reported of for 
good works . . . if she hath washed the saints’ feet,” etc. (I Tim. 
v:9, 10). Notwithstanding the fact that this ordinance had back 
of it the command of Jesus: “Ye also ought to wash one another’s 
feet” (John xiii:14), clerics had no compunction in relegating it to 
the past. 

We call attention to one other Pauline mandate—side-tracked 
many centuries ago: his charge concerning the “holy kiss.” In 
four several epistles he enjoins this salutation (Rom. xvi:16; 
I Cor. xvi:20; II Cor. xiii:12; I Thess. v:22). The same hand 
that wrote: “Let the women keep silence in the churches” (I Cor. 
xiv :34) also wrote—and in the same epistle—“Salute one another 
with a holy kiss.” The Apostle Peter gives the same charge to 
the elect of the Dispersion in Asia Minor: “Salute one another 
with a kiss of love” (I Pet. v:14). 

The “holy kiss,” or the “kiss of love,” as it was also called, 
was an essential part of the religious services of the primitive 
church. Tertullian declared that prayer was incomplete without 
it. It was given after baptism; at ordinations; at espousals; to 
the dying; and at funerals to the corpse. In “Christian An- 
tiquities,’ by Smith and Cheetham, Vol. II, p. 90, we have 
this statement: “The holy kiss originally formed an element of 
every act of Christian worship. No sacrament or sacramental 
function was deemed complete in its absence.” ‘Even common 
prayer without the kiss was considered to lack something of its 
true character.” 


PAULINE MANDATES 283 


Justin Martyr says: “When we have ceased from prayer, we 
salute one another with a kiss.” 

St. Cyril of Jerusalem says: “Then the deacon cries aloud, ‘Re- 
ceive ye one another, and let us kiss one another.’ ” 

These early Christians carried their osculations so far that they 
“Even embraced doors, thresholds, pillars, and pavements of the 
church, and above all the holy altar” (“Christian Antiquities’’). 

Not only were the services of the early church characterized by 
a round of kisses, but these were given promiscuously. We quote 
the following from Hastings, Vol. IV, p. 936: 

“That the kiss of Christian brotherhood and sisterhood was not 
restricted between the sexes is plain from the fact that in later 
times it was subject to abuse, which led to the restriction being 
imposed upon it. Athenagoras (177 A.D.) quotes some apocryphal 
writing under the designation of ‘The Logos,’ in rebuke of the 
abuse, which says: ‘If anyone kiss a second time because it gives 
him pleasure,’ etc., and again, ‘Therefore the kiss, or rather the 
salutation should be given with the greatest care, since if there be 
mixed with it the least defilement of thought it excludes us from 
eternal life.’ Clement of Alexandria condemns ‘The shameless 
use of the kiss, which ought to be mystic.’ Tertullian remarks on 
the reasonable complaint of a pagan husband that his wife should 
‘meet any one of the brethren to exchange a kiss.’ ” 

So much abuse crept in that in time restrictions were placed 
on the custom. According to Dr. Hastings, “The earliest instance 
of the new regulation appears in the ‘Apostolic Constitutions.’ ” 
It was there ordained that “The clergy salute the bishops; the 
men of the laity salute the men; the women the women.” 

Another authority on Christian antiquities says: “Nor is there 
any doubt that the primitive usage was for the ‘holy kiss’ to be 
given promiscuously, without any restriction as to sexes or rank, 
among those who were all one in Christ Jesus.” 

Any minister of today who would attempt to carry out this 
Pauline injunction would be unfrocked and driven from the com- 
munity, regardless of apostolic mandates. 

Now we ask by what law of justice have the courts of the 
church set aside these laws and ordinances on the ground of obso- 


284 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


leteness, while holding to the perpetuity of the Pauline rulings 
concerning women? How comes it that his commands regarding 
a digamus, church trials, feet-washing and the “holy kiss” have 
waxed “old as doth a garment,” and “as a vesture”’ have been 
folded up and changed, while ecclesiastics who decreed their dis- 
usage have chorused that the mandates relative to women are the 
same, and their “years shall not fail”? At once we have this 
answer—the charge concerning the digamus, church trials, feet- 
washing and the “holy kiss,” was concessional to local prejudice 
and customs. Time wrought changes along these lines and the 
necessity for such provisions no longer existed. It was other- 
wise with the Apostle’s rulings concerning woman. These were 
grounded in the immutable purpose of the Almighty. For 
refutation of this claim the reader is referred to Chapter I. 

When we have divested ourselves of the thought that Jehovah 
God predestinated the subordination of woman, we have cleared 
our vision to the extent of seeing that the Pauline rulings con- 
cerning her activities in the church were temporal in their char- 
acter, and local in their application. Like his mandates relative 
to second marriages, church trials, feet-washing and the “holy 
kiss,” they were determined by circumstances. 

Dr. Robertson, in his “Expository Lectures,” p. 118, says: 
“Tn all such cases, therefore, as are dependent upon circumstances, 
the Apostle speaks not as inspired, but as uninspired ; as one whose 
judgment we have no right to find fault with or cavil at, who lays 
down what is a matter of Christian prudence, and not a bounden 
and universal duty.” 

John Stuart Mill said: “To pretend that Christianity was in- 
tended to stereotype existing forms of government and society, 
and protect them against change, is to reduce it to the level of 
Islamism or of Brahmism.” 

We turn now to a study of these Pauline precepts in detail. We 
begin with his “First Epistle to the Corinthians,” xi:4-16: 


“Every man praying or prophesying having his head covered, 
dishonoureth his head. But every woman praying or prophesying 
with her head unveiled dishonoureth her head: for it is one and 


PAULINE MANDATES 285 


the same thing as if she were shaven. For if a woman is not 
veiled, let her also be shorn: but if it is a shame to a woman to 
be shorn or shaven, let her be veiled. For a man indeed ought 
not to have his head veiled, forasmuch as he is the image and glory 
of God; but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man 
is not of the woman: but the woman of the man: for neither was 
the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man: 
for this cause ought the woman to have [a sign of] authority on 
her head, because of the angels. Howbeit neither is the woman 
without the man, nor the man without the woman, in the Lord. 
For as the woman is of the man, so is the man also by the woman: 
but all things are of God. Judge ye in yourselves: is it seemly 
that a woman pray unto God unveiled? Doth not even nature 
itself teach you, that if a man have long hair, it is a dishonour to 
him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for 
her hair is given her for a covering. But if any man seemeth to 
be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of 
God.” 


This portion of Scripture is at once both a challenge and a 
torment to commentators. It is doubtful if there is any passage 
in the New Testament, outside “The Revelation of John,” that 
has so distraught expounders as the one before us. Drane in his 
commentary on the Pauline Epistles, rejects the entire section, 
xi:2-16, as an interpolation. We are not prepared to go this 
length. We believe it a hazardous undertaking. If one redactor 
may slash the Sacred Text because it perplexes him, others may 
do likewise. The result would be a mutilated Bible. Throughout 
this volume the author has sedulously avoided calling the au- 
thenticity of the text in question, except in cases where the evi- 
dence is indisputable. Our complaint has been against translators 
and exegetes. 

While exercising due precaution in this regard, we have not 
been unmindful of the fact that during the latter part of the first, 
and also during the second century, a strong antipathy developed 
against the public functioning of women in the church. This feel- 
ing resulted in a tampering with the Sacred Text. This was 
especially noticeable in passages effecting women. Of this there 
is indubitable proof. Notwithstanding these facts, we still main- 


286 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


tain that the safer course to pursue in the case before us is to 
accept, as far as possible, the text as it now stands, abiding the 
time when archeologists will lay their larger contribution at the 
feet of modern scholarship. If excrescences there be, we may 
rest assured that the future will disclose them. In the providence 
of God “there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed: 
neither hid, that shall not be known.” The disputation over Dr. 
E. S. Buchanan’s professed discovery of a second century version 
of the New Testament is not yet ended. A recent article in a 
New York daily declares that the old controversy has again “flared 
up” among Biblical scholars. We quote the following: 

“Dr. Buchanan’s text was taken from vellum manuscripts, known 
as ‘Codex Huntingtomanus Palimpsesius, supposedly brought 
here after they were stolen from a Spanish monastery.” Dr. Bu- 
chanan was former curator of the Hispanic Society of America. 
He contends that he “deciphered the text after months of patient 
reading of underwriting which had been washed out by acid, but 
which was indelibly imprinted by the original writer.” 

“The putative version antedates by two or three centuries the 
Vulgate which was a translation made by St. Jerome in the fourth 
century from the Hebrew texts.’’ Dr. Buchanan first asserted his 
discovery in 1917. He declares that when his version was first 
printed it was suppressed in this country. 

It is interesting to learn that this disputed version “assigns to 
woman a more superior place than previously accepted versions.” 
The Christian world can afford to wait the verdict of Biblical 
scholars on this mooted discovery. 

The First Epistle to the Corinthians was written in response 
to a letter of inquiry addressed to the Apostle Paul and also in 
rebuke of certain disorders that prevailed in the church at Corinth. 
Any fair-minded reader can see, that under such circumstances, 
the contents would be largely local in their application. It is true 
the inscription reads : “Unto the church of God which is at Corinth 
[even], them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called [to be] 
saints, with all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ 
in every place.” The phrase: “all that call upon the name of our 
Lord Jesus Christ in every place,’ does not make the Epistle 


PAULINE MANDATES 287 


general. In Colossians 1:23 we find this statement: “Not moved 
away from the hope of the Gospel which ye heard, which was 
preached in all creation under heaven.’ In the fifth and sixth 
verses of the same chapter we have these words: “The Gospel 
which is come unto you; even as it is also in all the world.” Dr. 
Jesse Hurlburt says: “‘AII the world’ is taken throughout the 
New Testament for the Roman Empire.” These are hyperbolic 
forms of speech, without intent to deceive, and the readers would 
so understand. The Pharisees said concerning Jesus: “Behold 
how ye prevail nothing; lo, the world is gone after Him” (John 
X11 :10). | 

The phrase: “With all that call upon the name of our Lord 
Jesus Christ in every place,” could only apply to churches under 
the Pauline jurisdiction, otherwise the “holy kiss,” feet washing, 
church trials, and prohibition of digamous officials is binding 
throughout Christendom today. 

The Apostle Paul could not determine questions of casuistry 
for congregations outside his own diocese. The reader will remem- 
ber that on a certain occasion he went up to Jerusalem, and en- 
tered into an amicable agreement with his fellow-Apostles— 
James, Cephas and John, that they should minister to the Jews 
and he and Barnabas to the Gentiles. In Galatians ii:7-9 we read: 


“When they saw that I had been intrusted with the Gospel of 
the uncircumcision, even as Peter with [the Gospel] of the cir- 
cumcision (for He that wrought for Peter unto the apostleship 
of the circumcision wrought for me also unto the Gentiles) : and 
when they perceived the grace that was given unto me, James and 
Cephas and John, they who were reputed to be pillars, gave to 
me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, that we should 
go unto the Gentiles; and they unto the circumcision.” 


The Apostle Paul had a defined field of labor: his mission was 
to the Gentiles. He was not ‘a meddler in other men’s matters” ; 
he did not build on “another man’s foundation.” It was not Paul, 
but Peter, who wrote to the elect “Sojourners of the Dispersion in 
Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia.” 

I Corinthians xi:4, “Every man praying or prophesying, having 


288 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


his head covered, dishonoureth his head.” In the preceding verse 
—xi:3—we read: “The head of every man is Christ; and the head 
of the woman [or wife] is the man [or her husband] and the head 
of Christ is God.” This headship of the husband has been fully 
treated in chapter eleven of this volume. 

“Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, 
dishonoureth his head.” 

Now exegetes who contend that this Epistle was general in its 
scope place the Apostle Paul in a position where they must defend 
him from the charge of misrepresentation. It was not every- 
where held to be an act of irreverence on the part of men to pray 
or prophesy with the head covered. The reverse was true of the 
Jews. The talith was worn “by all male worshippers at the morn- 
ing prayer on week days, Sabbaths, and holy days: by the hazzan 
at every prayer before the ark; by the reader of the scroll of the 
law when on the almemar” (“Jewish Encyclopedia’). 

Every devout Jew covered his head when he entered the Temple 
or a synagogue for worship. The Apostle Paul himself conformed 
to this custom. In Jerusalem, on his missionary tours, and even 
in Corinth when he entered a synagogue, he “veiled,” or covered 
his head. The same was true of Peter, James, John and all the 
other Apostles. The Lord Jesus, in conformity to the custom of 
his race, prayed and prophesied with His head covered. Under 
such circumstance how could the Apostle Paul send out announce- 
ment to the entire Christian world: “Every man praying or 
prophesying having his head covered dishonoureth his head”? Dr. 
Adam Clark says: “This decision of the Apostle was in point 
blank hostility to the canons of the Jews, for they would not suf- 
fer a man to pray unless he veiled, for which they gave this reason: 
“He should veil himself to show that he was ashamed before God, 
and unworthy with open face to behold Him.’ ” 

A Jewish writer affirms that in Bible times his race held that a 
man with his head uncovered was “In undress.” He says: “The 
Talmud speaks of the covered head of men as conducive to piety 
because the uncovered head was deemed slovenly and indecent” 
(“Jewish Service in Synagogue and Home,” p. 302). 

If the Apostle Paul had addressed this message—“Every man 


PAULINE MANDATES 289 


praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth 
his head”’—to the entire Christian world, he would not only have 
exceeded his jurisdiction, invaded churches over which he had 
no control, but he would have aroused resentment in every con- 
gregation where the Jewish element predominated. Such was not 
his method of procedure. He says: 


“To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain Jews: to 
them that are under the law, as under the law, not being myself 
under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; to 
them that are without law, as without law, not being without law 
to God, but under law to Christ, that I might gain them that are 
without law. To the weak I became weak, that I might gain the 
weak: I am become all things to all men, that I may by all means 
save some. And I do all things for the gospel’s sake” (1 Cor. 
ix :20-23). 


In the sixth chapter and twenty-third verse of this Epistle, he 
says: “All things are lawful: but all things are not expedient. All 
things are lawful: but all things edify not.’ The Apostle Paul 
was no truckler; he was no trimmer; where principle was involved, 
he made no compromise; he “gave place in the way of subjection, 
no, not for an hour’’; but in matters purely conventional, he ac- 
commodated himself to circumstances; he became “all things to 
all men’ in his desire to “by all means save some.” 

Corinth was a Graeco-Roman city, governed by Roman law, 
but dominated by Greek customs. Dr. Adam Clark says: “Every 
part of the Grecian learning was highly cultivated here: so that 
before its destruction by the Romans, Cicero scrupled not to call 
it totius Graeciae lumen—the eye of all Greece.” According to 
McGriffert, the “prevailing culture of the world” was at this time 
Hellenic. Now Greek custom decreed that men should uncover 
their heads in worship. Authorities differ regarding the Romans. 
The forementioned Jewish writer—Dembitz—-says: 


“The Romans, as a matter of pride, braved the sunshine and 
rain with uncovered head. When they invaded the Holy Land 
the covered or uncovered head became a badge of distinction be- 


290 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


tween the Jew and the invading foreigner.” “When Paul of 
Tarsus set forth his views to churches made up of Jews and Gen- 
tiles, intending to fuse both elements into a new communion, 
rather than a Jewish sect, like that over which James presided at 
Jerusalem, he demanded that the men should sit in the church with 
uncovered head, as the surest method of breaking the lingering tie 
between the church and the synagogue. From this command in 
Paul’s Epistle comes the Christian custom, by which the bare head 
alone is admissible in worship, or wherever else respect is to be 
shown to anyone; probably the lifting of the hat in salutation had 
its rise when Christians meeting each other took it off as a mark 
of recognition” (“Service in Synagogue and Home’). 

The “Lutheran Commentary,” says: 

“The Jews prayed with veiled faces, in order to express their 
great reverence of God. Among the Romans, the practice was 
similar. The Greeks, on the other hand, required that the head 
should be uncovered when sacred rites were performed.” Dr. 
Adam Clark says: “A man indeed ought not to cover his head; 
nor wear his cap or turban. It was contrary to the custom that 
prevailed, both among the Greeks and Romans,” 


The covering or the uncovering of the head by men was 
a live issue in the church at Corinth. The congregation was dis- 
turbed by factions. One party said, “I am of Paul”; another, 
“T, of Apollos”; a third, “I, of Cephas”; and the fourth, “I, of 
Christ.” The Cephas party was in all probability composed of 
such as contended for Jewish customs in the religious services. 
The Pauline party was evidently the strongest, for in his epistles 
the Apostle commends the church for obedience to his mandates. 

The covering or uncovering of the head in religious services was 
evidently one of the questions propounded in the letter the Apostle 
had received from this Corinthian congregation, and he handles the 
whole matter with the skill of a diplomat. He directs that they 
shall conform to the custom of the Greeks. Corinth was a city 
of Greece and the capital of Achaia. His ruling would doubtless 
be a disappointment to Jewish members, but the attention of the 
reader is called to the tactfulness of the Apostle. If we turn to 


PAULINE MANDATES 291 


the salutation, i:1-3, we will find that he joins with his own name 
that of Sosthenes. Now Sosthenes was a Jew, a resident—or at 
least a former resident of Corinth. When Paul first visited this 
city this man was a ruler of one of the synagogues (Acts xvili:17), 
so he must have been an individual of influence among his own 
people. He was a convert to Christianity and, in all probability, 
a member of the Corinthian church—at least had been. This 
would have weight with the Jewish members. It would mollify 
them to know that Sosthenes approved the decision of the Apostle. 
There were other prominent Jews in the Church at Corinth, Cris- 
pus, chief ruler of the synagogue; Gaius, Paul’s host and of the 
whole church (Rom. xvi:23); Stephanus, first fruit in Achaia 
—(I Cor. xvi). 

Whether the foregoing ruling had wider application than to 
the church at Corinth the reader must determine for himself. It 
seems to the author the fact that this was an answer to a question 
propounded by this Ropeicesuc would give it distinct local bear- 
ing. “Every man” would signify every man in the church at 
Corinth. It certainly could have no wider range than to the 
churches within the Pauline jurisdiction. If Roman men wor- 
shiped with covered heads—a mooted question—it is improbable 
the Apostle would have aroused antagonism by prohibiting the 
custom. ‘That he did not regard the veiling or the unveiling of 
the head a matter of vital importance is evident from what he 
says in verse thirteen—“Judge ye among yourselves,” etc. 

X1:5. “Every woman praying or prophesying with her head 
unveiled dishonoureth her head.” The Emphatic Diaglott renders 
the last clause “Disgraces the head of herself.””’ Here we have 
irrefutable proof that women prayed and prophesied in the church 
at Corinth; otherwise the words of the Apostle would have no 
import. If ecclesiastics had given one half as much attention to 
this passage as to xiv:34, women would never have been silenced 
in the churches. Unfortunately the latter mandate has loomed so 
large in the estimation of churchmen that it has obscured their 
vision when they came to the study of the passage now before us. 
Commentators in general have tugged and wrenched at xi:5 
almost to the point of exhaustion to bring it into line with xiv :34. 


292 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


If they had labored as strenuously to bring the latter into accord 
with the former they might have been more successful. 

In Hastings’ “Bible Dictionary,’ Vol. IV, p. 936, we have 
this lucid explanation of these kindred passages: 


“The Apostle assumes that women prophesy and pray in the 
church, only directing that they do so veiled. A little later he 
orders women to ‘keep silence in the churches’ (xiv:34). This 
seems to imply that on further reflection he thought it not suff- 
cient to protect their modesty that women should wear veils while 
preaching or praying, and therefore forbade their exercise of the 
gift of prophesying in public at all,” 


The author has italicized the words requiring our attention. Just 
here we propound some questions: 

(1) Was this message concerning the women of the church 
at Corinth inspired or uninspired? Was the Apostle speaking of 
himself or “of the Lord’? Was he giving his own opinion, or 
was he “moved by the Holy Ghost”? If the latter, how could he 
alter or revoke? Is the Holy Spirit vacillating? Does He have 
after-thoughts? Does He reconsider? Does He prompt the 
Apostle to say one thing, and an hour later move him to the con- 
trary? If the position of the foregoing writer is the correct one, 
it destroys every vestige of inspiration so far as the passages 
before us are concerned. 

If the Apostle was expressing his own private judgment in 
this matter; if he was giving his opinion, unilluminated by the 
Holy Ghost, his ruling is unauthoritative to women living two 
thousand years later, and under wholly different circumstances. 

(2) This writer also declares that the Apostle “on further re- 
flection,” forbade these women to exercise “the gift of prophesy- 
ing in public at all.’ We turn to I Corinthians xii:11, and read, 
“the same Spirit dividing to each one severally even as He will,” 
and in verse 10, among the bestowments of the Holy Spirit is 
mentioned the “gift of prophesying.” Now if the Holy Ghost 
endowed these women with this “gift,” who was the Apostle Paul 
that he should forbid its exercise? At once it is pointed out that 
this self-same writer qualifies his statement by adding—“in pub- 


} 


PAULINE MANDATES 293 


lic.’ This is true, but how could these women preach without 
a congregation? The Apostle himself defines prophesying as 
speaking “unto men edification, and comfort, and consolation” 
(xiv:3, 4). This presupposes an audience, and speaking to an 
audience is speaking “im public.’ Does this erudite expounder 
of Scripture assume that these women preachers spoke “edifica- 
tion, and comfort, and consolation,” to bare walls and empty 
benches? What a tangled web he weaves! McGriffert, in ‘The 
Apostolic Age,” p. 527, says: “Women as well as men prophesied 
at Corinth.” 

Expositors are at their wit’s. end to dispose of these women 
preachers in the church at Corinth. They point to xiv:34, “Let the 
women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto 
them to speak.” This passage will receive consideration in due 
season. For the present all we have to say is this: if xi:5 and 
Xiv:34 are in conflict, one or the other must be uninspired or 
misinterpreted—The Holy Spirit does not contradict Himself. 

Some commentators endeavor to relieve the situation by as- 
suming that these women preached to their own sex alone. That 
this was not the case is evident from the fact that the Apostle 
required them to wear veils. Herein is proof of the mixed con- 
gregations. Dr. Adam Clark says: 


“Whatever may be the meaning of praying and prophesying in 
respect to man, they have precisely the same meaning in respect 
to woman. So that some women at least, as well as some men, 
might speak to others edification, and exhortation, and comfort. 
And this kind of prophesying or teaching was predicted by Joel 
11:28, and referred to by Peter, Acts 11:17. And had there not 
been such gifts bestowed on women, the prophecy could not have 
had fulfilment.” 


Tertullian (150-226 A.p.), writing on this subject of men and 
women in religious services, says: “Together they pray, together 
they prostrate themselves, together they perform their fasts; 
mutually teaching, mutually exhorting, mutually sustaining. Equal 
are they both found in the church of God” (Book II, Part IV, 
chapter 8). 


294 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


“They must have been in view if it was requisite for them to be 
veiled. Their prophesying before the church involves their being 
in the presence of the whole community” (Hastings Bible Dic- 
tionary, Vol. IV, p. 936). 

Some redactors are bold enough to assert that these were un- 
usual cases. This is not assumption; it is presumption. There 
is nothing in the text to indicate that these women were excep- 
tions. In verse 4 the Apostle says: “Every man praying or 
prophesying”’; and in verse 5, “Every woman praying or prophe- 
sying.” Except for the change in gender, the expressions parallel 
each other. If only two or three women had received this en- 
dowment of the Spirit, the Apostle would, in all probability, have 
written—Let the women who pray and prophesy, etc. Instead 
of this, he uses the more comprehensive form—‘‘Every woman,” 
etc. He lays down one proviso for men—the uncovered head: he 
lays down one proviso for women—the veiled head. 

It was a requirement of both Greek and Roman custom that a 
woman veil when she appeared in public. One writer says: “This 
was, and is, a common custom through all the East, and none 
but public prostitutes go without veils.” The Oral law of the 
Jews was severely strict on this point. The Talmud declared it 
to be the duty of a husband to divorce his wife if she went abroad 
with her head uncovered, and further decreed the forfeiture of her 
kethubah. At the time the Apostle wrote, the unveiled head was 
a proclamation of harlotry. All he required was that these 
Corinthian women, when engaging in religious services, conform 
to the common usage. Robertson, in his “Expository Lectures,” 
says: “To pray unveiled was to insult all the conventional feelings 
of Jew and Gentile.” 

Henry Eyester Jacobs, writing in the “Lutheran Commentary,” 
says: 


“A woman can worship to edification and can profitably dis- 
charge every duty as a member of the congregation to which the 
Lord may call her, with her head uncovered. The grace of God 
is not bound to such externalities. But what of itself is a matter 
of no importance may under certain circumstances be of great 
moment, while under others its significance need not be regarded. 


PAULINE MANDATES 295 


. . . The decision here given has, therefore, an entirely temporary 
character and temporary validity.” 

The Augsburg Confession takes the above position in Article 
XXVII. 


There was special reason why Christian women should veil while 
officiating in the religious services in the church at Corinth. 
' Heathen priestesses—and there were many—offered petitions and 
delivered their oracles with uncovered heads and disheveled hair. 
The Apostle counseled nonconformity to this heathen practice. 
But there was further reason. Corinth was a grossly immoral city. 
One commentator says: “Public prostitution formed a considerable 
part of their religion, and they were accustomed in their public 
prayers, to request the gods to multiply their prostitutes... . 
So notorious was this city for such conduct, that the verb 
xoptvOralecbar—*To Corinthize’—signified to act the prostitute: and 


xoetvOta xooa—a ‘Corinthian damsel,’ meant a harlot or a com- 
mon woman.” According to Strabo, the Temple of Venus alone 
“maintained not less than a thousand courtesans who were the 
means of bringing an immense concourse of strangers to the place.” 
~ McGriffert says: “Corinthian immorality was proverbial the world 
over.” The city was thronged with lewd women who went abroad 
with uncovered heads; chaste women veiled their faces. The veil 
itself was a distinguishing badge between the virtuous woman and 
the prostitute. 

Not only was the city riotous in immortality, but the church 
was scandalized by the gross behavior of some of its communicants. 
Of the membership in general, Lindsay says: “They were a num- 
ber of burghers, freedmen and slaves who, as their names show, 
were mostly of Roman origin, gathered from the wealthiest and 
most profligate city on the Mediterranean.” The Apostle’s own 
words show that his converts were in the main from the lower 
strata of society. 1:26, he says: “Behold your calling, brethren, 
how that not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not 
many noble [are called],” and in vii:21, “Wast thou called being 
a bondservant? care not for it, but if thou canst become free, use 


296 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


it rather.” But if their social rank was low, their former moral 
condition was far worse. Here is the Apostle’s reminder: 

“Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulter- 
ers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor 
thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, 
shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you” 
(vi:9-I1). The Apostle adds: “But ye were washed, but ye were 
sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.” 

That this purifying process had not extended to the entire mem- 
bership is evident from xi:17-22, where the Apostle censures them 
for drunkenness, and v:1-13, where he reprimands them for har- 
boring fornicators. They had not all been “washed from their 
filthiness.” 

It was an act of foresightness and prudence on the part of the 
Apostle to require that women praying and prophesying be veiled. 
It spared them insult both from the unsanctified within and the 
lecherous without. 

One fact we wish to emphasize is this: Nowhere in this address 


“>, does the Apostle urge the wearing of veils on the ground that they 


symbolized subjection. This is a figment in the mind of com- 
mentators. His plea rests solely on the fact that the unveiled head 
brought disgrace upon the woman herself and wrought dishonor 
to her husband. He advances no other argument; he assigns no 
other reason. All higgling about the veil being a symbol of sub- 
jection is a chimera born of prejudice. It is doubtful if veiling 
ever had such import. The custom, in all probability, originated 
with women; and so far as themselves were concerned, it signified 
one thing, and one thing only—modesty. 

The double standard of morals has always prevailed in the East. 
Women, going abroad, were forced to endure the searching stare 
of the male sex. Innate modesty prompted them to shield them- 
selves behind the veil. They were actuated by the same feeling 
that induces the modern woman to “pass by on the other side” 
rather than to encounter a group of street-corner loafers. 

Men in time approved the practice of veiling because it afforded 
protection to their wives, sisters, and daughters. This, coupled 


PAULINE MANDATES 297 


with the jealousy of Oriental husbands, stabilized the custom. 
There was no thought of the veil as a symbol of subjection. It 
had no such mystic import. How the false idea of subjection asso- 
ciated itself with the veil is a matter for conjecture. It probably 
originated in the mind of a founder of some religious cult; from 
thence it passed to priest and Rabbim—and, as events show, to com- 
mentators. Outside this limited circle the thought has met with 
scant acceptance. Inquiry in countries where the practice pre- 
vails would elicit the almost universal answer—our women veil 
because it is immodest to do otherwise. Not one in a thousand, 
unprompted, would offer other explanation. And:this is as true of 
men as of women. 

In Smith’s “Dictionary of the Bible” is found this statement: 
“With regard to the use of the veil, it is important to observe that 
it was by no means so general in ancient as in modern times. 
Much of the scrupulousness in respect to the use of the veil dates 
from the promulgation of the Koran (in the seventh century A. D.), 
which forbade women appearing unveiled except in the presence 
of their nearest relatives.” 

The Apostle Paul never taught that the veil was a symbol of 
subjection. There is no such intimation in his epistles. Further- 
more, the Bible nowhere countenances such doctrine. It furnishes 
no example in support of such belief. When Rebekah saw Isaac 
approaching, she did not cover her face in token of subjection. 
She came from a country where matriarchy had a foothold. Cir- 
cumstances indicate that she herself was reared in such home. 
She had made a long and wearisome journey to wed an entire 
stranger, and when she saw him approaching to claim her as his 
bride she lowered her veil; not to pledge subjection, but in 
womanly modesty. 

Tamar sat by the wayside with her face covered to the intent 
that Judah might not recognize her. Moses veiled his face be- 
cause “When Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, 
behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come 
nigh him.” 

We challenge the reader of this volume to cite a single instance 


298 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


from the Bible where the wearing of the veil signified subjection. 
It is a fiction pure and simple. 

The same is true in regard to the veiling of the bride. Cere- 
monies attending an Oriental wedding lasted seven days. On the 
third or fourth evening the maiden—heavily veiled—was led by 
her father, or some near relative, to the bridal chamber, where the 
groom awaited her. That veiled head signified, not subjection; it 
signified modesty. 

Christian, the jurist, says: “Whatever may be the origin of 
feme-covert, it is not perhaps unworthy of observation, that it 
nearly corresponds in its signification to the Latin word nupta; 
for that is derived a nuberdo, 1.e., tegendo, because the modesty of 
the bride, it is said, was so much consulted by the Romans upon 
that delicate occasion that she was led to her husband’s home 
covered with a veil” (Blackstone, Vol. I, p. 441). 

“The head of every man is Christ: and the head of the woman 
[or wife] is the man” [or husband]: “and the head of Christ is 
God. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head cov- 
ered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman praying or proph- 
esying with her head unveiled dishonoureth her head” (xi:3-5). 

We couple with this verse seven: “A man indeed ought not to 
have his head veiled, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of 
God: but the woman [or wife] is the glory of the man [or her 
husband]. 

Now allow expositors to thrust in their claim that the veil is a 
badge of subjection, and see what follows: 


I.—(a) The veil is a badge of subjection. 
(b) A wife should be veiled to show she is in subjection 
to her head—her husband. 
II.—(a) The veil is a badge of subjection. 
(b) The husband should not be veiled; thereby showing 
that he is not in subjection to his head—Christ. 


Again: 


I.—(a) The veil is a badge of subjection. 
(b) The woman who prays or prophesies, wearing this 


PAULINE MANDATES 299 


badge of subjection, honors her head—her husband— 
by acknowledging his authority over her. 
II.—(a) The veil is a badge of subjection. 
(b) The man who prays or prophesies wearing this badge 
of subjection dishonors his Head—Christ. He must 
not acknowledge the Divine authority over him. 


But expositors assure us that the veil is also a badge of humility: 


(a) A woman must wear a veil to show that she is humble. 
(b) A man must not wear a veil; he is not humble. 


Verily the Apostle’s logic is awry or expositors have misinter- 
preted the veil. 

But these elucidators offer further information. They affirm 
that man should pray and prophesy with uncovered head because 
he is God’s representative on earth; His vicegerent; woman, on 
the other hand, is man’s representative in the home and should 
cover her head. 

We ask, how about Christ? He prayed and taught with covered 
head. Did He represent the Father? Was He “God manifest 
in the flesh’? If He represented God and prayed with covered 
head, how comes it that man is charged not to veil his head 
because he represents God? 

Commentators lay much stress on man’s representative character. 
We subjoin the following: “As the man is, among the creatures, 
the representative of the glory and perfections of God, so that 
the fear of him and the dread of him are on every beast of the 
field, etc.: so woman is, in the house and family, the representative 
of the power and authority of the man” (Dr. Adam Clark). 

“As the moon in relation to the sun; so woman shines not so 
much with light direct from God, as with light derived from man, 
1.€., in has order in creation; not that she does not in grace come 
individually into direct communion with God; but even here much 
of her knowledge is mediately given her through man, on whom 
she is naturally dependent” (Portable Commentary). 

“Paul indicates the godlike rule and lordly majesty which the - 


300 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


position of man as the head of his wife involves. ... In her 
management as his housewife the exalted position of man is mani- 
fest” (Dr. Kling). 

“Since God would have the male sex to be a kind of representa- 
tion of His glory, majesty and power, a man ought not by hiding 
his face . . . to conceal the glory of God shining in him” (Dr. 
Cruden). 

“Man is God’s glory: He has put in him His majesty, and he 
represents God on earth: woman is man’s glory; taken from the 
man, shining not with light direct from God, but with light derived 
from man” (Dean Alford). 

Commentaries are plentifully supplied with such deliverances, 
but we forbear to quote further. The sum and substance of it all 
is this—Man should uncover his head because he is God’s repre- 
sentative; woman should hide her face because she is man’s. A 
sinister compliment to the male sex. 

The author once stood in the temple at Luxor, Egypt, and gazed 
on a colossal statue of Rameses II. It represented the monarch 
as seated. At his side stood the diminutive figure of his wife— 
her head barely reached his knee. In this way the “Pharaoh of 
the oppression” sought to convey to his own and subsequent gen- 
erations some idea of his almightiness. The mummified body of 
Rameses II lies in the museum at Cairo; his spirit transmigrated. 

The efforts of commentators to crowd wife-subjection into the 
Pauline arguments have so disarranged his syllogisms, so disjointed 
his premises and conclusions that they themselves feel constrained 
to apologize in his behalf. McGriffert, in “The Apostolic Age,” 
p. 306, says: 


“Paul himself evidently felt the weakness of the argument and 
its inconsistency with his general principles, for he closes with 
an appeal to the custom of the churches: ‘We have no such custom, 
neither have the churches of God,’ therefore you have no right to 
adopt it. This was the most he could say. Evidently he was on 
uncertain ground.”—“On uncertain ground!’ and “moved by the 
Holy Ghost!” 


Sir William Ramsay says: 


PAULINE MANDATES 301 


“He is not free from the beliefs and even the superstitions of 
his age. . . . In the nonessentials he sometimes, or often, remains 
impeded and encumbered by the tone and ideas of his age... . 
The instructions which he sometimes gives regarding the conduct 
of women are peculiarly liable to be effected by current popular 
ideas. . . . Where both angels and women are found in any pas- 
sage, Paul is peculiarly liable to be fettered by current ideas and 
superstitions.” 


Others attribute these characteristics to their author’s “early 
training in the great Rabbinical schools.” 

We suggest that the fault is not with the Apostle, but with 
expositors. They have meddled with his argument, they have 
introduced extraneous material. 

Relieved of foreign entanglements, the Apostle’s reasoning is 
not only ingenious, but logical. A dispute had arisen in the church 
at Corinth over the matter of veiling. The Apostle was appealed 
to and he endeavors to settle the controversy. He lays down two 
lines of argument and keeps to his text. His first proposition is 
this: “Every man praying or prophesying, having his head cov- 
ered, dishonoreth his head.” Now the Apostle reasons along this 
line and this line only. He says nothing about man being pre- 
destinated to rule over the “beasts of the field, the fowls of the 
air, and every living thing that moveth upon the earth’”—woman 
included. He affirms that a man ought not to pray or prophesy 
with his head covered, and indicates the reason—by doing so he 
dishonoreth Christ, his Head. Now the point to be stressed is .. 
not the lordship of man, but the dishonor shown Christ by an 
act of irreverence. To unveil the head was to recognize His 
divinity ; to omit this homage was to degrade Him to the level of 
a human being—the Greeks would so interpret. Hellenists always 
bared their heads in the presence of their deities; this they deemed 
an act of worship. The Apostle was mindful of this fact. He 
reckoned on the impression that would be made on the popular 
mind. He knew that the sophistical Greek would regard the 
covered head an acknowledgment on the part of Christians that 
their leader—Christ—was not divine. Because of this he ruled. 


302 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


that man “ought not to veil his head.” His act would be misin- 
terpreted. 

The Apostle’s second proposition is this: “Every woman pray- 
ing or prophesying with her head unveiled dishonoreth her head: 
for it is one and the same thing as if she were shaven.” The 
Greeks did not deem it an act of irreverence on the part of women 
to pray or prophesy with their head covered. By doing so they 
did not dishonor Christ. For this reason this phase of the question 
does not enter into the Apostle’s discussion. The reader may 
recall that Jewish women were exempted from laying their hands 
on the head of animals offered in sacrifice. This was a conces- 
sional arrangement; so among the Greeks women were granted 
immunity in the matter of unveiling before their deities. 

In verse four of the chapter before us the Apostle points out 
the reason why a man should bare his head when praying or 
prophesying—in order that he might not dishonor Christ: in verse 
five he assigns the reason why a woman should veil her head when 
functioning in the same capacity. The uncovered head, for her, 
was an insignia of harlotry—“one and the same thing as if she 
were shaven.” He says nothing about being in subjection to her 
husband. He gives but one reason—the “shame” attached to the 
unveiled head; its disgraceful significance. Prostitutes uncovered 
their heads; the punishment meted out to the adulteress was to 
have her head shorn—historians fail to enlighten their readers as 
to the penalty inflicted on adulterers. 

In his ruling regarding the veiling of women, the Apostle, as 
in the case of men, was reckoning with the impression that would 
be made on the popular mind; he was taking thought for “things 
honorable in the sight of all men”; and who of us can cavil? 

Verse xi:7: “For a man indeed ought not to have his head veiled, 
forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God; but the woman 
(or wife) is the glory of the man” (or her husband). 

There is no intimation here that woman is not also, and equally, 
“the image and glory of God”; otherwise the Apostle would be 
in conflict with the teachings of Sacred Writ elsewhere. In 
Genesis v:2, we read: “Male and female created He them: and 
blessed them, and called their name, DAN (man) in the day when 


PAULINE MANDATES 303 


they were created.” Link with this Genesis 1:26, “God said, Let 
us make DUN (man) in our image, after our likeness: and let 
them have dominion,” etc. Dr. Hodge, in answer to the question— 
“In what sense was man created in the image of God?” says: 

(1) “In respect to the spirituality of his nature, man, like God, 
is a rational, moral, free agent.” Is not woman “a rational, moral, 
free agent” also? 

(2) “In respect to the moral integrity and holiness of his 
nature.” Is not woman’s “moral integrity and holiness of nature” 
on a par with man’s? 

(3) “In respect to the dignity and authority delegated to his 
person, as the head of this department of creation” (“Outlines of 
Theology’). 

In confirmation of the last point, Dr. Hodge gives Genesis 1:28: 
“And God blessed them [Adam and Eve], and God said unto them 
[Adam and Eve], Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, 
and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and 
over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth 
upon the earth.” (The words inclosed by brackets are offered as 
explanatory by the author of this volume.) 

A careful study of this passage will, beyond peradventure, show 
that “the dignity and authority” spoken of by Dr. Hodge was 
“delegated” to woman as much as to man. Orthographers and 
lexicographers are agreed that T-H-E-mM—spells THEM, but com- 
mentators in general persist in writing and pronouncing the word 
—HIM. 

How comes it that the Apostle in xi:7 singles out man as “the 
image and glory of God,’ and makes no mention of woman as 
being such? The reason is apparent. He is not discussing woman 
in her Divine relationship, but in her human. Man in the covering 
of his head dishonored Christ: woman, on the other hand, by 
unveiling, brought dishonor on herself and to her husband. The 
argument is this: Man ought not to dishonor Christ, himself 
being “the image and glory of God.” To dishonor the Son was 
to dishonor the Father also, whereas he ought to glorify 
Him. 

Woman brought no dishoner to Christ by covering her head, 


304 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


but she brought shame and confusion to herself and to her husband 
by unveiling. Then the Apostle carries his argument into the 
following verses: 

8,9. “For the man is not of (é%) the woman: but the woman of 
(éx) the man: for neither was the man created for (8t«) the 
woman; but the woman for (8t«) the man.” His first statement, 
that man is not from (é*%) woman, but woman from (éx) man, 
is a reference to her creation. She was formed from man’s side. 
The second statement: “Neither was the man created for (8fa) 


, 


the woman, but the woman for (3{e) the man,” is an objectional 


translation. Ata with the accusative, gives the “ground or 
reason” on “account of which a thing is done.’ The rendering 
“for” carries with it an impression of proprietorship which is not 


in the Greek. Eve was created “on account of” (8t«) Adam, 
because he was in a divided state without her, but she was not 


created to be his property, but his counterpart. Ata does not 
carry with it the thought of possession; it assigns the cause or 
reason. 

Holding to the English rendering, these expositors maintain 
that as woman was created “for the man,” she must of necessity 
be subordinate to him. We ask all such to turn to verse twelve 
of this chapter, where the matter is still under discussion. “For 


as the woman is of (éx) the man, so is the man also by (8t«) the 
woman.” If translators had rendered 8te here, “for,’ as in 


verse nine, the reading would be: “So is the man also for (Sta) 
the woman.” Now adopt the same line of reasoning as in verse 


nine, and we have the following: The man is “also for (8fa) the 
woman,” therefore he must of necessity be in subordinate relation 
to her. The translators evade such inappreciable conclusion by 


rendering ofa in this instance “by’ instead of “for” as in verse 
nine. 

God said, “It is not good that the man should be in his separa- 
tion, I will make to him a help suitable to him.” Man was incom- 
plete and insufficient in himself, and God provided a correspondent 
being, and this correspondent being was to be a “help,” not a 


PAULINE MANDATES 305 


hindrance, not a shame; she was to do him “good and not evil all 
the days of her life.” 

It is related of Dr. Livermore that on one occasion he sat on 
the platform while his talented wife, the Rev. Mary E. Livermore, 
delivered an address. At the close of the meeting a captious indi- 
vidual approached, and with a covert sneer inquired: “Well, Doc- 
tor, how do you enjoy being Mrs. Livermore’s husband?’ In- 
stantly Dr. Livermore replied : “I am delighted, sir, I am delighted! 
I am the only man in the world who has that honor.” Dr. Liver- 
more felt himself honored in the applause bestowed on his gifted 
wife. | 
The Apostle Paul appealed to the Christian wives in the church 
at Corinth to be exemplary in their deportment and to bring honor 
to their husbands. The casting aside of the veil degraded them 
in the estimation of the public. This wrought special injury to the 
husband, for under the law of Patria Potestas he was held respon- 
sible for the misconduct of his wife. 

XI:10: “For this cause the woman ought to have power over 
her head, because of the angels” (8t& todto dgethet h yuvi) éEouctay 
eyetv ert ths xegadts dia toto ayyéAous). The Authorized Ver- 
sion renders thus: “For this cause ought the woman to have power 
on her head, because of the angels.” The translators have entered 
in the margin this note: “That is a covering, in sign that she ts 
under the power of her husband.” 

The Revised Version reads: “For this cause ought the woman 
to have [a sign of] authority on her head, because of the angels.” 

Expositors are agreed that this passage is one of the most diffi- 
cult in the New Testament to elucidate. Dr. Adam Clark says: 


“There are few portions in the sacred writings that have given 
rise to such a variety of conjectures and explanations, and are less 
understood, than this verse. ... Our translators were puzzled 
with it: and have inserted here one of the largest marginal readings 
found anywhere in their work: but this is only on the words ‘power 
on her head, which they interpret thus: ‘that is, a covering, in sign 
that she is under the power of her husband. But, admitting this 
marginal reading to be a satisfactory solution so far as it goes, 


306 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


it by no means removes all the difficulty. Mr. Locke ingenuously 
acknowledged that he did not understand the meaning of the 
words: and almost every critic and learned man has a different 
explanation. Some have endeavored to force out a meaning by 
altering the text.” 


Now what is the trouble? Here is a plain, definite statement— 


“The woman ought to have power (é&oucta) over (éxt) her 
head” ;—the language is unequivocal; the import of every word 
is established; the grammatical construction is faultless—there is 
not found in the New Testament a more simple, direct statement 
—‘‘The woman ought to have power over her head.” Why all 
this hubbub? We have similar passages in the Bible and expositors 
have experienced no difficulty with them. Take, for examples, the 
following: 


Luke ix:1, “Power and authority (éS0ucta) over (éxt) all 
demons.” 

Luke x:19, “Authority (é0ust«) over (éxt) all the power of 
the enemy.” 


Rev. ii:26, “Power (é&0ucta) over (éxt) the nations.” 


Rey. vi:8, “Power (éS0ucta) ... over (éxt) the fourth part of 
the earth.” 


Rev. xiv:18, “Power (é§0uat«) over (éxt) fire.” 


Rev. xvi:9, “Power (éf0ucta) over (éxt) these plagues.” 

Translators were not “puzzled” over these passages. In not a 
single instance did they feel it incumbent upon them to insert a 
“marginal reading.”” No commentor “ingenuously acknowledged 
that he did not understand the meaning of the words”; “almost 
every critic and learned man” did not have “a different explana- 
tion’; no one endeavored “to force out a meaning by altering the 
text.” 

We ask any unprejudiced reader to point out the source of 
difficulty in I Corinthians xi:10: “The woman ought to have power 
(gEoucta) over (éxt) her head.” How do we account for it that 
“there are few portions in the sacred writings that have given rise 
to such a variety of conjectures and explanations, and are less 


PAULINE MANDATES 307 


understood, than this verse”? If the reader is nonplussed for an 
answer, the author will enlighten him as to the cause of this 
dilemma; it centers about one word—and one word only—and 
that word is—“woman.” If the Apostle had written—“The man 
ought to have power over her head”—there would have been no 
difficulty ; the meaning would have been as clear as the noonday; 
translators would not have been “puzzled”; no need for “marginal 
reading,” or ingenuous confessions; critics and learned men would 
have agreed in their explanations, and no redactor would “have 
endeavored to force out a meaning by altering the text.” But the 
Apostle did not so write. He wrote, to the confusion and dismay 
of translators and expounders—“The woman ought to have power 
over her head.” 

We call attention to the fact that in all the passages cited as 
examples the translators have rendered the preposition, énxt 
“over” instead of “upon,” making the reading—“authority over.” 
In the opinion of the author this is the rendering that should be 
adopted in I Corinthians xi:10—“power over her head,” rather 
than “power on her head.” 

Now let us study this passage as it appears in our Revised 
Version, after translators have wrought their will upon it. “For 
this cause ought the woman to have (a sign of) authority on her 
head.” But we protest the words, “a sign of,’ are not found in 
the original text; the Apostle never wrote—“a sign of,’ and trans- 
lators have no right to add to or take from his statement. They 
are blameworthy in this matter. If the Apostle had written, “A 
man ought to have authority over her head,” no translator or 
expositor would have juggled with his words. Take, for example, 
the passages given as references—Luke ix:1; x:19; Matt. ix:6; 
Rev. 11:26; vi:8; xiv:18; xvi:g—no one has laid hands on them; 
no one has forced into them the words—“a sign of.’ Why should 
I Corinthians xi:10 be singled out for special treatment? We 
need not go afield to find an answer. 

Commentators complain that I Corinthians xi:10 is hard to 
elucidate. Again we suggest that the difficulty is not with the text, 
but with its expounders—its confounders. They endeavor to make 
the Apostle say something that he did not say. He declared that a 


308 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


woman ought to have authority over her head, and they manipulate 
to make him say the contrary; he writes about her having power, 
and they legerdemain with “a sign of.” 

The exposition of I Corinthians xi:10, as it appears in the 
Revised Version, and as interpreted in the marginal note of the 
Authorized Version, merits place in a curiosity shop. 

First, we are told that this “sign of authority” on the head of 
the woman is the veil. Naturally we are taken aback at this 
announcement. Heretofore expositors with one voice have in- 
sisted that the veil was a symbol of subjection; here they make it 
an insignia of authority. We are perplexed. How can it bea 
token of power and at the same time a sign of subjection? 

Again these elucidators bewilder us by affirming that this “sign 
of authority’ on the head of the woman indicates that she is with- 
out authority; this insignia of power, that she is devoid of power. 

But the climax is reached when we are assured that this “sign 
of power” on the head of the woman symbolizes, not what belongs 
to her, but that which belongs to her husband. This is equivalent 
to saying that the crown on the head of a king signifies, not that 
he rules, but that he is under rule: the scepter in his hand, not that 
he governs, but that he is governed. 

If the veil—“a sign of authority’’—on the head of the woman is, 
as King James’ translators assure us, “a covering, in sign that she 
ts under the power of her husband,” one can but wonder why this 
insignia of authority is not on the head of the ruler, instead of on 
the head of his subject. Why should woman “wear that which 
pertaineth unto a man”? Sir William Ramsay, an accepted author- 
ity on the Pauline writings, says: 


“Most of the ancient and modern commentators say the ‘author- 
ity’ which the woman wears on her head is the authority to which 
she is subject—a preposterous idea which a Greek scholar would 
laugh at anywhere except in the New Testament, where (as they 
seem to think) Greek words may mean anything that the com- 
mentators choose.” 


We return to the plain, simple statement of the Apostle: “For 
this cause ought the woman to have power over her head.” Now 


PAULINE MANDATES 809 


this must mean one of two things: either that she has authority 
over her mystical head—that is, her husband; or that she has power 
over her physical head. Let us take these in order. 

(1) For this cause ought the woman to have power over her 
mystical head—her husband. 

To the author of this volume the thought of husband-subjection 
is as repellent as the thought of wife-subjection: marriage is not 
a form of servitude wherein one party is in bondage to the will of 
the other. (2) “For this cause ought the woman to have power 
over her head”—that is her physical head. This passage, as the 
author understands it, is simply a declaration on the part of the 
Apostle, that in this matter of veiling or unveiling the woman 
ought to have the right of self-determination. This word éfouctla 
—in the Authorized Version rendered “power” and in the Revised 
Version “authority,” is sometimes translated “right,” signifying 
choice. Take, for example, the following passages from the 
Revised Version: 

I Corinthians ix:4, “Have we no right (é&ousta) to eat and to 
drink ?” 

IX :5, “Have we no right (é§0ucta) to lead about a wife?” 

IX:5, “I only and Barnabas, have we not a right (é§oucta) to 
forbear working?” 

IX:12, “If others partake of this right (é&oucela) over you, 
do not we yet more? Nevertheless we did not use this right” 
(€§0ucta). 

IX :18, “So as not to use to the full my right (é€0ucte) in the 
gospel.” 

II Thessalonians iii:9, “Not because we have not the right 
(éEoucta). 

This word— é§ovct«—translated in these passages—‘“right”— 
is used in I Corinthians xi:10—“For this cause ought the woman 
to have power (é&oucta) over her head.” If we adopt the render- 
ing “right” instead of “power” or “authority,” we have the fol- 
lowing: “For this cause ought the woman to have right (é§0ucla) 
over her head.” . 

We turn to Thayer’s “Greek-English Lexicon” and find the first 


310 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


definition of gfoucta to be—“power of choice, liberty of doing as 
one pleases.” With these facts in mind, we take I Corinthians 
xi:10 and achieve as follows: “For this cause ought the woman 
to have right over her head”—1in other words, the woman ought 
to have the “power of choice’—the “liberty of doing as she 
pleases’—in this matter of veiling or unveiling. 

The above statement leads us to a definite conclusion. It is this: 
The agitation in favor of women uncovering their heads when 
praying or prophesying was not on the part of women, but on the 
part of men. The former are by nature more conservative than 
the latter; they cling more tenaciously to customs; they shrink 
from innovations ; this would certainly be the case where the change 
would jeopardize their reputation for chastity. In the sixteenth 
verse the Apostle says: “We have no such custom, neither the 
churches of God.” Christian women were not casting aside their 
veils; they were not seeking notoriety; and the Apostle ruled that 
in the Church at Corinth no constraint should be put upon them. 
They had, the right to determine this matter for themselves—each 
woman had authority over her own head. - 

But how about the introductory phrase—‘for this cause?” 
What cause? This connects the statement with the Apostle’s 
argument in the preceding verse. Woman was created on account 
of man—to be a help—not a detriment, therefore she ought not 
to be constrained into an act that would bring dishonor to herself 
and to her husband. 

“Because of the angels.” Here is a clause that has nonplussed 
commentators. Through the centuries they have wrestled with it, 
and at times have brought discredit on themselves and on the 
angels. The question is not of vital moment here, so we pass it by 
without discussion. 

Verses II and 12 are self-explanatory. 

Verse 13, “Judge ye in [among] yourselves: is it seemly 
(xeéxw) that a woman pray unto God unveiled?” The word 
meétw signifies that which is “becoming,” or “befitting.” 

According to Lindsay, this church at Corinth had its business 
sessions, where it ruled “its members in the true democratic fashion 
of a little village republic.” The decisions were reached by vote. 


PAULINE MANDATES 311 


The question of the unveiling of women preachers had reached an 
acute stage, and the Apostle, after presenting reasons why there 
should be no departure from the common custom, refers the whole 
matter to the business session of the church for adjustment. This 
may be the explanation; on the other hand, he may be saying to 
his correspondents—stop and consider, and you will see that, under 
present circumstances, it is inadvisable for these women to lay 
aside their veils: “All things are lawful . . . but all things are not ~ 
expedient.” 

Verse 14, “Doth not even nature itself teach you that, if a man 
have long hair, it is a dishonor to him?’ (R. V.). The Authorized 
Version renders—‘“a shame to him?” Here is a remarkable state- 
ment—remarkable in that it is at variance with facts: 

(1) Nature does not teach that it is a shame to a man to have 
long hair. In childhood and youth one sex has little advantage over 
the other in this matter. The treatment the male head receives 
after adolescence is responsible in largest degree for the difference 
in later years. In countries where men’s hair is allowed to grow— 
in China, for instance—it averages well, both in length and abun- 
dance, with that of women. The male ancestors of these Corin- 
thians were famed in history for the luxuriant growth of hair. 
Their ancestors were called “the long-haired Greeks, or Achzans.” 

(2) Custom, at the time the Apostle wrote, and centuries before, 
did not account it a shame to a man to have long hair, it was 
rather a distinction. Absalom’s flowing tresses were his especial 
pride. The Nazarites wore their hair long and they were revered 
to the extent of placing the lifelong one on an equality with the 
High Priest. Eusebius, the historian, records that no razor ever 
came upon the head of James the Apostle. Among the Jews, every 
man who assumed a vow allowed his hair to be unshorn. For a 
certain period during his residence in Corinth Paul himself allowed 
his locks to grow. “He had a vow” (Acts xviii:18). He shaved 
his head at Cenchrez. 

Under these circumstances, how may we account for the 
Apostle’s words: “Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if 
a man have long hair, it is a dishonor to him?’ Dr. Katharine 
Bushnell offers the most satisfactory explanation the author has 


312 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


met with. She suggests there is an error in the punctuation. The 
earliest manuscripts of the New Testament were written in uncials ; 
these were without punctuation. It was several centuries after 
the Apostle wrote before these marks were introduced. Doubtless 
punctuators were sincere, but they were uninspired. This being the 
case, it is conceivable they could err in judgment. Dr. Bushnell 
points out that by substituting a period for the interrogation mark 
this sentence is changed from a question into an affirmation, and 
reads: “Not even nature itself teaches you that, if a man have 
long hair, it is a dishonor to him.” This is effected without the 
change of a single word, and brings the statement into accord with 
facts. 

Verse 15: “But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her; 
for her hair is given her for a covering.” We only pause to note 
that some have claimed that the Apostle here taught that the women 
of the Corinthian Church might pray and prophesy with heads un- 
veiled: that their hair was a sufficient covering. We might so 
understand, were it not for the fact that such interpretation brings 
the passage into sharp conflict with the context. 


EN 


XIV 


IN THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH: PAULINE 
MANDATES (ConrTINvED) 


¢ AHE opponents of “mutual rights’ for women in the church 


of Jesus Christ, rivet their attention, in the main, upon 

two passages in the Pauline Epistles—I Corinthians 
xiv :34, 35, and I Timothy ii:12. Here they find their Gibraltar: 
here they plant their batteries; from here they belch forth shot 
and shell. Take these two passages out of the Bible, and you 
have torn the ground from under their feet; there is nothing left 
for them to stand on. 

In the mind of redactors these passages loom so large that the 
recorded facts of Scripture, the predictions of the prophets, and 
the known practice of Christ count for little in comparison. In- 
stead of interpreting these two passages in the light of other Scrip- 
ture, they interpret all other Scripture in the light of these two 
passages. Instead of making the Apostle harmonize with Christ 
and the prophets, they seek to make Christ and the prophets har- 
monize with the Apostle. 

Before taking up these two passages which have been made to 
do duty so long in the warfare against the ecclesiastical equality 
of women, we lay down two rules as guides in our exegesis: 

(1) These sayings of the Apostle must be made, if possible, to 
accord with other teachings of revelation on this subject. We 
cannot afford to array Paul against Christ and the prophets, or 
to set him at variance with the recorded facts of Scripture. To 
make the Bible contradict itself is to go a long way toward invali- 
dating any theory of inspiration we may hold. We must interpret 
“according to the analogy of faith.” 

(2) These two passages must be brought into accord with other 
Pauline teachings on the subject, and they must harmonize with 
his practice. The Apostle must be consistent with himself: other- 
wise his authority as a teacher sent from God is annulled. 

313 


314 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


Even the most prejudiced must acknowledge these rules to be 
correct guides in exegesis. 

Under Rule 1 we aver that the commonly accepted interpretation 
of I Corinthians xiv:34, 35, and I Timothy 11:12, does not har- 
monize with Divine appointments under the Old Testament dis- 
pensation, with the predictions of the prophets, or with the practice 
of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Under Rule 2 we reject the commonly accepted exegesis of I 
Corinthians xiv :34, 35, and I Timothy ii:12, because it makes the 
Apostle self-contradictory. He not only permitted, but encouraged 
the public ministry of women, both by practice and precept. 

With these rules in mind we turn to I Corinthians xiv:34, 35: 
“Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not per- 
mitted unto them to speak; but (they are commanded) to be under 
obedience, (8 xotaccésbwoay) as also saith the law, and if they will 
learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a 
shame for women to speak in the church” (Authorized Version, 
I6II). 

“Let the women keep silence in the churches; for it is not per- 
mitted unto them to speak; but let them be in subjection, as also 
saith the law. And if they would learn anything, let them ask 
their own husbands at home: for it is shameful for a woman to 
speak in the church” (English Revised Version, 1884). 

“As in all the churches of the saints, let the women keep silence 
in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak but 
let them be in subjection, as saith the law. And if they would learn 
anything, let them ask their own husbands at home: for it is shame- 
ful for a woman to speak in the church” (American Revised Ver- 
sion, IQOT). 

The authenticity of this passage has been questioned. Weinel 
and Cane suspect that verse 34 is an interpolation by a later hand, 
as also I Timothy ii:12. MHilgenfeld, Holsten, Schmiedel, and 
others, regard verses thirty-four and thirty-five as interpolations. 
In some of the Ambrosiaster MSS. these two verses are trans- 
ferred to the end of the chapter and follow verse forty. For 
reasons before stated, the author prefers to treat them as genuine, 





PAULINE MANDATES 315 


leaving to future archzological discoveries to reveal spuriousness, 
if such there be. 

In our study of this passage, we call attention first to the inno- 
vation in the American Revised Version (1901). In the Author- 
ized Version (1611) and in the English Revised Version (1884), 
the clause, “as in all the churches of the saints,” is a part of the 
preceding paragraph, making the reading thus: “For God is not 
(a God) of confusion, but of peace: as in all the churches of the 
saints.’ The American Revisers have wrested the phrase—“as in 
all the churches of the saints’—from its venerable alliance and 
attached it to the succeeding paragraph. The result is the most 
uncouth sentence within the lids of the New Testament: “As in all 
the churches of the saints, let the women keep silence in the 
churches.” Not only is there redundancy, but the ordinary rules 
of syntactical arrangement are disregarded. This is so manifest 
that commentators in general are not in sympathy with this new 
alignment. From numerous protests we quote the following: “The 
last clause of this verse (33) is made the first of the following 
sentence by a number of critics (De Wette, Billroth, Meyer, and 
formerly Stanley), reading thus: ‘As in all the churches of the 
saints let the women keep silence,’ etc., and so Lachmann and 
Tischendorf print in their texts: but not Tregelles. Their ground 
appears to us weak, and the proposed connection seems far from 
natural. All the elder interpreters adhere to the punctuation of 
the received text, and they are followed by Neander, Osiander, 
and latterly by Alford” (“The International Illustrated Commen- 
tary’—on Epistles of Paul, p. 219). 

Alford, in a note in his Greek New Testament, says: 


“Tn all the churches of the saints,” God is a God of peace; let 
Him not among you be supposed to be a God of confusion. I am 
compelled to depart from the majority of modern critics of note, 
e.g., Lachmann, Tischendorf (ed. 7 and 8), Billroth, Meyer, De 
Wette, and adhere to the common arrangement of this latter clause. 
My reason is, that taken as beginning the next paragraph, it is 
harsh beyond example, and superfluous, as anticipating the reason 
about to be given ov yao, %. t. Y. Besides which, it is more . 
in accordance with St. Paul’s style to place the main subject first, 


316 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


see I Timothy iii:8, 11, 12, and we have an example of reference 
to general usage coming in last, in aid of other considerations, 
(Chapter xi:16) ; but it seems unnatural that it should be placed 
first in the very forefront of a matter on which he has so much 
to say.” 


Dr. S. T. Bloomfield, D.D., F.S.A., vicar of Bisbrooks, Rutland, 
comments thus: 


“There is no reason, with many eminent editors and expositors 
from Bishop Pearce downward, to connect these words with the 
words following. For thus the gravity and authority of the 
Apostle’s injunction will be injured, and great irregularity sup- 
posed—namely, that of introducing an inferior reason first in the 
sentence. And what example is there of a sentence so commencing 
with an ®¢ ? ‘This seems to have been an expedient resorted to 
from the connection between these words and the preceding ones, 
being not very obvious. But why should we not consider this (like 
very many others in St. Paul’s epistles) as a briefly worded clause, 
standing in the place of a complete sentence, introduced by an 
illative particle?” 


In reference to this innovation, Bishop Ellicott says: “It really 


only weakens the force of the strong final (%va) sentence with 
which it would thus be associated. We therefore, with the earlier 
expositors, and apparently all the Versions, connect the clause with 
what precedes.” 

Meyer, while supporting the change, concedes that “ ‘As in all 
the churches of the saints’ is referred by the Fathers and most of 
the older expositors, Riickert, Osiander, Neander, Maier, to what 
precedes.” Later he says: “Paul is decided against all undue 
exaltation and assumption on the part of women in religious things, 
and it has been the occasion of much evil in the church.” He 
fails to mention the fact that most of the disturbances along this 
particular line, down through the centuries, have been attributable 
to “undue exaltation and assumption” on the part of the male sex. 
“Tt has been the occasion of much evil in the church.” From the 
middle of the second century women have, in the main, been silent 
nonentities in the assemblies of the saints. 


PAULINE MANDATES 317 


The author rejects the new arrangement as it appears in the 
American Revised Version for the following reasons: 

(1) It gives—in the language of Dean Alford—a reading 
“harsh beyond example.” 

(2) It violates the rules of orderly syntactical arrangement. 

(3) It is not in accord with the Pauline style of composition. 

(4) All previous Versions, so far as known, attached the clause 
to the preceding paragraph. 

(5) It sets aside Patristic testimony. The early Fathers lived 
on the confines of the Apostolic Age; were familiar with the Greek 
language and the peculiarities of its construction. All this gave 
them advantages not possessed by modern critics. © 

(6) No sufficient reason is assigned for this departure. It seems 
to the author but an abortive effort on the part of a minority to 
make verses 34 and 35 general, instead of local, in their application. 

(7) The great body of expositors reject this new alignment. 
The English Revisers had in their ranks as much of scholarship; 
they had before them all the data accessible to the American 
Committee, and were not impressed with the need for change. 

(8) Connecting the clause “as in all the churches of the saints” 
with what follows instead of what precedes, results in a false state- 
ment. This fact alone should determine the controversy. Women 
did not keep silence in the assemblies of the saints during the 
Apostolic Age—not even in the church at Corinth—as is attested 
by xi:5. 

We turn now to a study of the text: 

“Let the women keep silence in the churches: for it is not per- 
mitted unto them to speak: but let them be in subjection 


(Snotaccésbwoay), as also saith the law (6 véuoc). And if they 
would learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home: 
for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church” (R. V. 1884). 
Sixteen verses of the eleventh chapter of this epistle, as noted 
in the preceding chapter of the volume, are devoted to a discus- 
sion of seemly attire for women when “praying or prophesying” 
in the public congregation. Under such circumstance, the pro- 
hibition in xiv:34, 35 cannot possibly relate to such ministrations. 
To hold otherwise is to make the Apostle inconsistent and self- « 


818 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


contradictory. In the language of Dr. A. J. Gordon, “it is quite 
incredible . . . that the Apostle should give himself the trouble 
to prune a custom which he desired to uproot, or that he should 
spend his breath in condemning a forbidden method of doing a 
forbidden thing.” 

Many commentators remark on the “apparent discrepancy” be- 
tween this passage and xi:1-16, and then endeavor to reconcile 
the difference by reading their own thoughts into the text; they 
interline xi:1I-16 with suppositions; they weight it down with 
“probabilities.” Instead of reading xiv:34, 35, in the light of 
xi:I-16, they pull and wrench at xi:1-16 to bring it into line with 
XIV :34, 35. 

Prof. A. H. Sayce says: “The Biblical records have been put 
into a category by themselves, to their infinite harm and abuse. 
Commentators have been more anxious to discover their own 
ideas in them, than to discover what the statements in them really 
mean.” 

But there are men who manifest a fair spirit even within the 
ranks of expositors. Dr. A. J. Gordon, in his admirable article 
in “The Missionary Review,’’ December, 1894, says: 


“Here, again, the conduct of women in the church should be 
studied in relation to that of men if we would rightly understand 
the Apostle’s teaching. Let us observe, then, that the injunction 
to silence is three times served in this chapter by the use of the 
same Greek word otétw, twice on men and once on women, and 
that in every case the silence commanded is conditional, not abso- 
lute. ‘Let him keep silence in the church’ (v. 28), it is said of 
one speaking with tongues, but on condition that ‘There be no 
interpreter.’ ‘Let the first keep silence’ (v. 30), it is said of the 
prophets, ‘Speaking by two or three’; but it is on condition that 
‘A revelation be made to another sitting by.’ ‘Let the women 
keep silence in the church’ (v. 34), it is said again, but it is 
evidently on condition of their interrupting the service with ques- 
tions, since it is added, ‘For it is not permitted them to speak .. . 
and if they would learn anything, let them ask their husbands at 
home.’ This last clause takes the injunction clearly out of all 
reference to praying or prophesying, and shows—what the whole 
chapter indicates—that the Apostle is here dealing with the various 


PAULINE MANDATES 319 


forms of disorder and confusion in the church: not that he is 
repressing the decorous exercise of spiritual gifts, either by men 
or by women. If he were forbidding women to pray or prophesy 
in public, as some argue, what would be more irrelevant or mean- 
ingless than his direction concerning the case: ‘If they would learn 
anything, let them ask their husbands at home’? .. . In fine, we 
may reasonably insist that this text, as well as others discussed 
above, be considered in the light of the entire New Testament 
teaching—the teaching of prophecy, the teaching of practice, and 
the teaching of contemporary history—if we would find the true 
meaning.” 


Dr. Jacob, in “The Ecclesiastical Polity of the New Testament,” 
says: 


“A due consideration of this ministry of gifts in the earliest days 
of Christianity—those times of high and sanctified spiritual free- 
dom—both shows and justifies the custom of the public ministra- 
tion of women as well as men; the former as well as the latter 
were allowed to use them in Christian assemblies. This seems to 
me quite evident from Paul’s words in I Cor. «1:5, where he 
strongly condemns the practice of women praying or prophesying 
with heads unveiled, without expressing the least objection to 
the public mimstration on their part, but only finding fault with 
what was considered an unseemly attire for women thus publicly 
engaged. The injunction contained in the same epistle (I Cor. 
xiv :34), ‘Let your women keep silence,’ etc., refers, as the context 
shows, not to prophesying or praying in the congregation, but to 
making remarks and asking questions about the words of others.” 


A learned Chinaman, schooled in Oriental custom, when asked 
to explain this passage of Scripture, answered promptly, “The 
Apostle is rebuking women for disturbing the services by asking 
questions.” | 

A survey of circumstances, and a careful study of the phrase- 
ology of the text, ought to reveal its import. Great disorder pre- 
vailed in the religious services of this church at Corinth. Each 
one had a Psalm, a teaching, a tongue, an interpretation, and all 
endeavoring to participate in the service. The Apostle seeks to 


320 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


quell this disturbance; he commands silence. “Let all things be 
done decently and in order.” Let those who are speaking in an 
“unknown tongue” refrain unless an interpreter be present; let 
the prophets speak in turn; let the women desist from asking ques- 
tions and thereby adding to the confusion. 

The custom of interrupting the speaker prevailed throughout the 
Orient, but the practice was confined to men. The conventionalities 
of the age deemed it an unseemly thing on the part of women. 
In the Jewish synagogues, men interrupted, interrogated, judged, 
and even refuted the statements of the speaker, but a Rabbinical 
ordinance forbade women to ask questions. Read the Gospel 
record and note how often Jesus was interrupted in His public 
discourses. Now it seems that some of the women of the church 
at Corinth had followed the example of the men in this matter, 
and the Apostle expresses disapproval. It would give occasion 
“to the adversary to speak reproachfully”; so he directs that if, 
in the future, “they would learn anything,’ they should “ask 
their own husbands at home.” 

The thirty-fifth verse ought to determine beyond question the 
import of this passage. It ought to be conclusive evidence to any 
unprejudiced mind that the Apostle is not here referring to “pray- 
ing and prophesying.” “If they would learn anything, let them ask 
their own husbands at home.’ When an individual prays, he or 
she is not asking questions: when an individual prophesies, he or 
she is not seeking to learn, but contrariwise, imparts instruction. 
In the passage before us—xiv:34, 35—the Apostle rebukes these 
Corinthian women, not for an attempt to teach, but for an unseemly 
effort to “learn.” 

To the author the foregoing explanation is satisfactory, and 
meets all the requirements of the case without “reading into” 
the text of either xi:1-16 or xiv:34, 35. 

But there is another explanation which merits, at least, our 
consideration. Dr. Lindsay, in his volume, “The Church and the 
Ministry in the Early Centuries,’ p. 58, says of the Church at 
Corinth: 

“It has its meeting for edification, open to all who care to at- 
tend, when conversions are made which multiply the little com- 


PAULINE MANDATES 321 


munity; its quieter meetings for thanksgiving, where none but 
the believing brethren assemble, and where the common meal en- 
shrines the Holy Supper as the common fellowship among the 
brethren .. . its business meetings where it rules its members 
in true democratic fashion of a little village republic.” 


This writer mentions three distinct orders of service (1) The 
public meetings. (2) The meeting where only members of the 
church were admitted; where the common meal was partaken 
of and where the Lord’s Supper was administered. (3) The 
executive session where all matters of business were attended to. 
In regard to the latter, Dr. Lindsay says: 


“This local unity took shape in the meeting of the congregation 
which is expressly called “The Church’ by the Apostle, at which 
all the members apparently had the right of appearing and taking 
part in the discussion and voting—women at first as well as 
Mens sees 

“This meeting had charge of the discipline of the congregation 
and of fraternal relations between the community and other Chris- 
tian communities. Letters seeking Apostolic advice were prepared 
and dispatched in its name (I Cor. vii:1). It appointed delegates 
to represent the church, and gave them letters of commendation 
(II Cor, iii:1, 2; vili:19). . . . The whole administration of the 
external affairs of the congregation was under its control; ... It 
expelled unworthy members (I Cor. v:1-8), it deliberated upon 
and came to conclusions about the restoration of brethren who had 
fallen away and showed signs of repentance (II Cor. ii:6-9). It 
arrived at its decisions, when necessary, by voting, and the vote of 
the majority decided the case” (p. 55). 


Professor Kurtz, in his “Church History,” Vol. I, p. 61, says: 
“The Christian service was in like manner from the first divided 
into a homiletical-didactic part, and an eucharistic-sacramental 
part,” but on page 64 he also makes mention of the executive ses- 
sions of the church. “If any one caused public scandal by serious 
departure from true doctrine or Christian conduct,” he says, and in 
spite of pastoral counsel persisted in his error, he was by the judg- 
ment of the church cast out, but the penitent was received again 
after his sincerity had been proved (I Cor. v:1; II Cor. ii:5). 


322 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


We call attention to the statement of Dr. Lindsay, page 55 of 
his volume; that this executive session was “expressly called 
‘The Church.”” Now if such were the case, it is barely possible 
that the Apostle, in his charge concerning women—xiv :34, 35— 
had special reference to such meeting. At the time he wrote a 
serious case of immorality on the part of one of the leading 
members of the congregation was about to come before the church 
for trial (I Cor. v:1-7). The nature of the offense was such that 
it would be out of place for a woman to participate in the discus- 
sion. For this reason the Apostle charged “If they would learn 
anything, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is 
shameful for a woman to speak in the church.” 

The correctness of this exegesis is dependent on two things: 
(1) The validity of the statement that these business sessions were 
“expressly called ‘ The Church.” (2) A second matter that must 
be accounted for is the plural “churches.” The Authorized Ver- 
sion reads: “Let your women’”—that is the women of this par- 
ticular congregation—‘“keep silence in the churches.” There was 
but one church in Corinth—how then could these women “keep 
silence in the churches”? If the Apostle refers to the executive 
sessions we can understand why the plural form appears, for the 
case about to be tried was of such magnitude as to require time 
for its disposal. The word “your” does not appear in the Re- 
vised Versions. 

On the whole, the first explanation of this passage is the simpler 
and meets every requirement. 

“Let them be in subjection (dnxotaccésbwoay) as also saith the 
law’’ (R. V.). The Authorized Version renders thus “(They are 


commanded ) to be under obedience (dxotaccés8woay) as also saith 
the law.” The words, “They are commanded,” are not found in 
the Greek, neither are they required by the context. They are 
supplied by the King James’ translators. They do not appear in 
the English and American Revised Versions. 

The word dxotaccésbwoay, translated “obedience” in the Au- 
thorized Version, and “subjection” in the Revised, is the same 
word used in Ephesians v:21, where the Apostle exhorts church 


PAULINE MANDATES 323 


members: “submitting yourselves (Sxotaccéwevot) one to another 
in the fear of God” (A. V.) (R. V.). “Subjecting yourselves 


(Sxotacodmevor) one to another in the fear of Christ.” Here, as in 
every other instance when applied to wives, the verb is in the 
middle voice.’ The import of the word has been fully considered 
in Chapter XI. 


“As also saith the law (6 véuoc).” What law? Not the Mosaic 
law. In our study of the status of woman under the Mosaic 
régime, Chapter V, we found that the Sinaitic code nowhere 
taught the subordination of the wife. The only provision that 
could be interpreted as giving the husband the slightest authority 
over his wife is Numbers xxx, where he might interdict a “rash’’ 
vow or a vow that would “affitct the soul.’ Even here he was 
limited “to the day that he heareth.”’ 

“As also saith the law.” Is the reference here to the Oral law? 
There is no probability that the Apostle had such in mind when 
he penned these lines. He incurred the enmity of the Judaizers 
when he refused to impose the ceremonial law on Gentile converts, 
and it is altogether unlikely that he would bring such into bondage 
to the Oral law—“The tradition of the elders,’ which Christ so 
scathingly condemned. 

“As also saith the law.” If the reader will take his Bible and 
turn to I Corinthians xiv :34, he will find as marginal reference— 
“Genesis 11:16.” Translators and expositors with one accord 
point back to this resourceful passage as “the Law.” 

The Hebrews classified the Old Testament Scripture as “the 
Law, the Prophets and the Hagiograph,” or “Psalms.” Now it 
was in this first division—“the Law” or Pentateuch, they found 
their solution—Genesis 111:16: “Unto the woman he said, I will 
greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou 
shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, 
and he shall rule over thee.” We give the passage, not as it 
should be translated, but as it occurs in our English Versions. 

The author, after investigation of considerable range, has never 
yet found a redactor pointing to Genesis iii:17-19 as “the Law” 
—‘‘Unto the man he said, because thou hast hearkened unto the 
voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I com- 


c 


324 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


manded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground 
for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy 
life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and 
thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face 
shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of 
it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou 
return.” 

If Genesis ii1:16 is “the Law,’ Genesis 111:17-19 is “the Law” 
also. If Genesis iii:16 is in the Torah, Genesis iii:17-19 is in the 
Torah also—and moreover, Genesis xxi:12. “And God said unto 
Abraham, ... in all that Sarah saith unto thee, obey (yow) her 
voice.” i 

For a study of Genesis 111:16, the reader is referred to Chapters 
II and III of this volume. 


The Apostle Paul used the term “Jaw” (véuos) with latitude. In 
his Epistle to the Romans, he writes about the “law of faith’; 
“law of the Spirit”; “law of their minds’; “law of sin,” etc. 


Some expositors hold that when véuo¢ is preceded by the article it 
has reference to the Mosaic law. Others of equal repute hold the 
contrary. 

It will aid us in our exegesis to pause and consider the circum- 
stances. The Apostle was addressing a Greek congregation. The 
church was composed, in the main, of Greek and Roman converts. 
Such being the case is it not more than probable that he would 
use the word yéuo¢ in its Greek or Roman sense? In its Roman 


sense vouoc signified the civil law, and this embodied the Patria 
Potestas. In its Greek sense it purported usage or custom. Dr. 
Gloag says: “The term yéuo¢ which he employs, is the Greek 
word for custom, right, an ordinance, law” (“Introduction to 
Pauline Epistles,” p. 253). Thayer, in his “Greek-English Lexi- 
con,” gives as the primary definition of véuoc, “Anything estab- 
lished, anything received by usage, a custom, usage, law.” 

The Apostle Paul adapted himself to circumstances: It is true 
that in his Epistles to the Romans and to the Galatians—both Gen- 
tile churches—he uses the word yéuoc 1n reference to the Mosaic 
law. This was necessary from the fact that in these two epistles 


PAULINE MANDATES 325 


he was refuting the claim of the Judaizers, and withstanding their 
efforts to impose the Mosaic ritual on Gentile Christians: he was 
contrasting salvation by “The works of the law,’ and salvation 
through faith in Jesus Christ. 

Verse 35. “If they would learn anything, let them ask their own 
husbands at home.” 

This injunction xiv:34, 35 was given to married women, and 
evidently was intended only for such as had Christian husbands. 
One expounder of Sacred Writ holds to the contrary. He ex- 
tends the interdiction to all women and avers that it applies with 
greater force to the unwedded than to the married. But how 
are the former to acquire information? He enlightens his readers. 
The unmarried woman must inquire of some wife, who will pass 
the question to her husband: he in turn may ask in the public 
congregation, and report the answer back along the line. 

“Let them ask their own husbands at home.” In “The Inter- 
national and Critical Commentary,’ edited by Robertson and 
Plummer—page 325—we find this palatable morsel: ‘Perhaps 
‘husbands,’ by analogy, would cover brothers and sons.” In short, 
according to these writers, a woman must never acquire knowledge 
along religious lines, immediately, but always mediately through 
some male member of the household. How far is this removed 
from the heathen dogma? If young theologues are nourished on 
such pabulum, can we wonder that women are excluded from the 
councils of the church? 


I Timothy ii:11, 12. “Let the women learn in silence (Hovyte) 
with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach (3tddéoxetv) 
nor to usurp authority («d0evtetvy) over a man, but to be in silence” 
(houxtg) (A. V.). 

Weinel and also Cane regard this passage as an interpolation. 

“Let the women learn in silence” (Hovytg) (A. V.). 


The word jouxta in this case rendered “silence” by King James’ 
translators, occurs in I Peter iii:4; I Thessalonians iv:11; I Tim- 
othy 11:2; I] Thessalonians i11:12, and in each instance is rendered 
“quiet.” If the translators had rendered “silence” asin I Timothy . 
ii, we would have the following: 


326 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


“A meek and silent (qovytou) spirit” (I Pet. iii:4). 
“That ye study to be silent (jovyaterv) and to do your own 
business” (I Thess. iv:11). 


“That we may lead silent ({cbytov) and peaceable lives” (I Tim. 
11:2). 

Why did King James’ translators vary the rendering in I Tim- 
othy ii:11? The Revised Version gives a uniform reading and 
renders thus: “Let a woman learn in quietness,’—that is with- 
out distraction, in a tranquil, decorous manner. ‘Trench, in his 
“New Testament Synonyms,” defines qHatytog as “Tranquillus in 
verbis, vuliu, actu.” 

Dr. Gordon says: “ ‘Let a woman learn in quietness’ (Hovx!¢), 
an admonition not at all inconsistent with decorous praying and 
witnessing in the Christian assemblies. When men are admonished, 
the King James translators give the right rendering to the same 


word: ‘That in quietness (Aovytas) they work and eat their own 
bread’ (II Thess. iii:12), an injunction which no reader would 
construe to mean that they refrain from speaking during their 
labor and eating.” 


I Timothy ii:12. “But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to 


have dominion («J8evtety) over a man” (R. V.). King James’ 
translators are blameworthy for the rendering they have given this 
verse: “I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over 
a man.” “Usurp” is not in the Greek, nor is it implied in 
auGeytety. Bishop Ellicott says: “A further meaning not con- 
tained in the word.” 

As to this twelfth verse there are two explanations, either of 
which seems plausible: 

1. The one advanced by Wiesinger, viz., that the regulation 
here laid down had special reference to the wife in her relation, to 
her husband. He says: “The transition in verse eleven from 


Yuvatxag to yuyn shows that the Apostle now passes on to some- 
thing new, viz., the relation of the married woman to her hus- 
band.” 


Paul did not permit a wife to instruct her husband in the 


PAULINE MANDATES 327 


capacity of a 8téaoxaAoc, in the church. We have elsewhere noted 
that the Greek word for woman (yuvy) and the Greek word for 
wife (yuvn) are the same: the Greek word for man (évqje) and 


the Greek word for husband (d&vqje) are the same. The passage 
before us can as properly be translated: “I permit not a wife to 
teach or to have dominion over her husband’’; and the succeeding 
context favors such rendering. 

To have allowed a wife to instruct her husband in the public 
assembly in the capacity of a 8éaoxaAo¢ would have outraged 
every prejudice of the age. To set a wife to teach her husband in 
the church would have been as odious to that generation as to set 
a slave to teach his master. 

The Apostle never, when avoidable, ran counter to the prejudices 
of the people; he never ignored conventionalities. He took Tim- 
othy and circumcised him, “because of the Jews that were in those 
parts’ (Acts xvi:3) he counseled abstinence from meats offered to 
idols, that the conscience of the weak be not wounded (I Cor. 
viii) ; he directed the women in the church at Corinth to wear 
their veils (I Cor. xi), because the uncovered head was a proclama- 
tion of harlotry: he provided that those who had contracted a 
second marriage should not be elevated to office in the church 
(I Tim, iii) because at that time there was popular prejudice, in 
both Greece and Rome, against remarriages. He writes to the 
Corinthians: “Give no occasion of stumbling, either to the Jews 
or to the Greeks, or to the church of God, even as I also please 
all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit 
of the many, that they may be saved” (I Cor. x:32, 33). He ex- 
ercised prudence that “the word of God be not blasphemed.” 

2. A second explanation is as follows: 

In the early Christian church teachers (8:3é0xahot) were a dis- 
tinct order. In the New Testament they are ranked third in the 
order of the clergy. In I Corinthians xii:28, 29, we read: “God 
hath set some in the church, first Apostles, secondly prophets, 


thirdly teachers” (8t6acxdAous). “Are all apostles? are all proph- 
ets? are all teachers” (t3doxaAor)? In the Didache the dt3doxaAor 
ranked fourth in the order of ecclesiastics. 


328 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


The New Testament throughout differentiates between preach- 
ing (xnetcow) and teaching (8:3dé0xw). It is said of Jesus (Matt. 
xi:1), “He departed thence to teach (8t8décxerv) and to preach 
(xnedcey). II Timothy i:11 the Apostle Paul says “I was ap- 


pointed a preacher (xjev§) and an apostle and a teacher” 


(St3doxahocg). Citations might be multiplied. To make teaching 
(8t8dexw) and preaching (xynetccw) the same thing, is to charge 
the sacred writers with redundancy. 

As to the manner of teaching, according to Dr. Geikie, the 
teacher sat on a raised seat, known as “the seat of Moses” (Matt. 
xxili:2) with his disciples ranged about him. He propounded 
questions and allowed the disciples to give their opinions, adding 
his own when he thought proper. The scholars could also, in 
their turn, propose questions. It is said of Jesus, on the occasion 
of His visit to Jerusalem, when twelve years of age, that His 
parents “found Him in the Temple, sitting in the midst of the 
doctors” or teachers (8:dacxéAwy) “both hearing and asking them 
questions” (Luke 11:46). We also know from the New Testa- 
ment record of Christ’s teaching, how largely questions and an- 
swers entered into it. This method of imparting instruction in- 
volved disputation—controversy—the teacher always reserving the 
right of authoritative decision on the question at issue. The in- 
terruptions by questions, and the contradictions, were at times 
carried to such extent as to culminate in disorder, and even vio- 
lence. On the occasion when Christ denounced the scribes and 
Pharisees, they “pressed upon Him vehemently to provoke Him 
to speak of many things.” 

This mode of teaching was carried over into the Christian 
Church. Paul reasoned daily for two years in the school of 
Tyrannus at Ephesus: (Acts xix:9). Apollos was a 8t8écxaAo¢ 
(Acts xviii:25), and “powerfully confuted the Jews” at Corinth 
(Acts xvili:28); Paul reasoned every Sabbath in the synagogue 
at Athens (Acts xviii:4). The verb in each case means, “to 
argue”; “to discuss’; “to dispute.” This was the authoritative 
teaching the Apostle Paul is supposed to have prohibited on the 


PAULINE MANDATES 329 


part of women; and such the interruptions and asking of ques- 
tions he forbids in I Corinthians xiv :34, 35. 

We call attention to the fact that the Apostle does not here 
forbid a woman serving in the capacity of 68tddécxaA0¢; he only 
restricts her to her own sex. He says: “I permit not a woman to 


teach, nor to have dominion over a man” (dvdo6c). There is 
nothing in Greek Syntax, so far as the author knows, that prevents 


a&v8eé¢ from being the object of Sddoxetv as well as of ad@evtety. 
Paraphrased, the sentence would then read: “I permit not a woman 


to teach (8¢8décxetv) a man, nor to have dominion over him.” We 
must bear in mind that punctuation marks were not introduced 
until centuries after this passage was written. It was not the 
Apostle, but the “latter-day” scribe, who placed that comma after 


ériteéxw. The present English style of punctuation marks came 
into vogue about the sixteenth century. 


It has been asserted that the title 8:3acxaAo¢ is never applied 
to a woman in the New Testament. This is a mistake. In Titus 


ii:3, we read: “That the aged women (noecGittdac) likewise be 


reverent in demeanor, ... teachers (xaAo-d5t3acxdéAous) of that 
which is good.” Dr. W. K. Brown translates the passage thus: 


“That women elders (toecGitr5ac) likewise be reverent in de- 
meanor . . . teachers of that which is good.” The provision here 
is that they teach their own sex. 

According to this second view the Apostle Paul did not permit 


women to instruct men in the capacity of 8t8décxaAoc, where dis- 
putation played so large a part—disputation unrestricted by our 
modern rules of propriety, but which often degenerated into 
wrangling: as both sacred and profane history attest. The wis- 
dom of such restriction can scarcely be questioned, especially in a 
country and age when the relations of the sexes were so exclusive. 
He did permit them to instruct men in other capacity than that of 


Stsdoxadog. This is evident from I Corinthians xi, where he 
provides for their prophesying; and as is shown in the case of 
Priscilla expounding Scripture to Apollos (Acts xviii:26). 

Of the two explanations of I Timothy ii:12, the first seems the 


330 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


better supported, viz., that the Apostle did not permit a wife 
to instruct her husband in the capacity of a 6t8acxaAoc, in the 
public congregation. We are led to this conclusion by the fol- 
lowing fact. The Council at Carthage, 398 a. D., prohibited women 
exercising the office of 6:3aéo0xaA0¢, (Canon xcix), while Canon xii 
provided that they might privately teach their own sex. If the 
custom had not prevailed, the Council would not have interdicted 
it; if women had not instructed men, Canon xii would not have 
restricted them to their own sex; if they had not taught in public, 
the Council would not have put a ban on such practice. 


I Timothy i1:15. For a discussion of this passage, the reader is 
referred to Chapter III of this volume. 

I Timothy 11:8-10. “I will therefore that the men pray every- 
where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting. In like 
manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with 
shamefacedness (aid00¢) and sobriety; not with braided hair or 
gold, or pearls, or costly array; but (which becometh women pro- 
fessing godliness) with good works” (A. V.). 

“T desire therefore that the men pray in every place, lifting up 
holy hands, without wrath and disputing. In like manner that 
women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefastness 
(aiso0¢) and sobriety; not with braided hair, and gold or pearls, 
or costly raiment; but (which becometh women professing god- 
liness) through good works” (R. V.). 

The controversy here centers about the two Greek words, 
BovAouuar (“I will,” or “I desire’) and nxpocebyecbat, (pray). 
In verse nine the verb is wanting, and must be supplied from 
verse eight. Now the question is, shall GobAouwat alone be carried 
forward, or BotAouuat moocedyecOar? If BotAouuat alone, the 
reading is: “I desire therefore that the men pray in every place, 
lifting up holy hands,” etc. . .. [I desire] “in like manner that 
women adorn themselves in modest apparel,” etc. But where is the 
relevancy of the clause—“in like manner” (@cabtws)? Where is 
the similarity of conduct? 

If BolvAouuvat and meocedyecOat are carried forward we have 


PAULINE MANDATES 331 


the following : “I desire therefore that the men pray in every place, 
lifting up holy hands,” etc... . [I desire] “in like manner that 
women [pray] in seemly apparel,” etc. 

This second rendering is supported by De Wette, Wiesinger, 
Hofmann, Mack and others. Dr. A. J. Gordon says: 


“By general consent the force of GobAovpat—T will,’ is carried 
over from the eighth verse into the ninth: ‘J will that women’ 
(vide Alford). And what is it that the Apostle will have women 
do? The words ‘In like manner’ furnish a very ‘suggestive hint 
toward one answer, and a very suggestive hindrance to another 
and common answer. Is it meant that he would have the men 
pray in every place, and the women, ‘Jn like manner, to be silent? 
But where would be the similarity of conduct in the two instances ? 
Or does the intended likeness lie between the men’s ‘lifting up 
holy hands,’ and the women adorning themselves in modest ap- 
parel? So unlikely is either one of these conclusions from the 
Apostle’s language, that as Alford concedes, Chrysostom and 
most commentators supply tcoocetyecbat ‘to pray’ in order to 
complete the sense. If they are right in so construing the pas- 
sage—and we believe the ®caltw¢ ‘in like manner,’ compels them 
to this course—then the meaning is unquestionable. ‘I will there- 
fore, that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, etc. In 
like manner I will that women pray in modest apparel,’”’ etc. 

“In one of the most incisive and clearly reasoned pieces of 
exegesis with which we are acquainted, Wiesinger, the eminent 
commentator, thus interprets the passage, and, as it seems to us, 
clearly justifies his conclusion. We have not space to transfer 
his argument to these pages, but we may, in a few words, give 
a summary of it, mostly in his own language. He says: 

“ “tT, In the words ‘in every place,’ it is chiefly to be observed 
that it is public prayer and not secret prayer that is spoken of. 

“2. The reocebyecbat, ‘to pray’ is to be supplied in verse nine, 
and to be connected with ‘in modest apparel’; so that this special 
injunction as to the conduct of women in prayer corresponds to 
that given to the men in the words ‘lifting up holy hands. This 
verse, then, from the beginning, refers to prayer; and what is 
said of the women in verses nine and ten is to be understood as 
referring primarily to public prayer.” 


332 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


The interpretation here given brings this passage into complete 
harmony with I Corinthians xi:4-6.. The Apostle there directs 
that women pray and prophesy with their heads veiled, in con- 


formity to the custom of that age: he here enjoins them to pray © 


in seemly apparel. 

Of xatactoAkn, Ellicott says: “Not simply ‘dress,’ a meaning 
for which there is not satisfactory authority, but ‘deportment,’ as 
exhibited externally, whether in look, manner or dress.” 


“With shamefacedness” (atSo0i¢) (A. V.). 


“With shamefastness” (aidoi¢) (R. V.). 
The rendering “shamefacedness,” as found in the Authorized 


Version, is wholly inexcusable. The same word—aisw>s—occurs 
in some Mss. in Hebrews xii:28, and is there rendered “reverence” 
(Aatpebery Oe@ werd aldoc xat edraBetac). “Serve God ac- 
ceptably with reverence (ais0%¢) and godly fear” (Heb. xii:28). 
Now if at3¢ signifies “shamefacedness” in I Timothy ii:9, it 
also signifies “shamefacedness” in Hebrew xii:28; if “reverence” 
is the proper rendering in Hebrew xii:28, “reverence” is the proper 
rendering in I Timothy ii:9. Did the fact that I Timothy ii:9 re- 
fers to women, in the opinion of translators, afford sufficient ground 
for a change in the rendering? Whatever their premises, their con- 


clusion seemed to be that atéw¢ applied to men and women, 
meant “reverence,” applied to women only, it signified “shame- 
facedness.” The Revised Version render the word “shamefast- 
ness.” Bia aaa | 

Dean Alford characterizes the translation “shamefacedness” as 
an “unmeaning corruption.” Of the word substituted by the 
Revisers—“‘shamefastness,’ Dr. Katharine Bushnell says: “An 
obsolete word, giving an entirely wrong sense to the uninformed 
mind. The impression either word leaves upon the mind of the 
ordinary person is that in one sense or another, Paul would have 
woman and shame go together. The translators did not find it 
necessary to adopt either an unmeaning corruption or an obsolete 
word when they encountered the same noun in the only other 
passage in the New Testament in which it occurs. When man 


(with woman) is described in his attitude towards God, ‘a con- 





PAULINE MANDATES 333 


suming fire’ in Hebrew xii:28, it is at once discovered that the 


> 99 


proper sense of this Greek word aidw<¢ is ‘reverence. 
Trench, in “New Testament Synonyms,” xix, xx, says of 


aldw>: 


“Tn it is involved an innate moral repugnance to the doing of a 
dishonorable act.” “Ai3w¢ finds its motive in itself, implies 
reverence for the good as good, and not merely as that to which 
honor and reputation are attached” .. . “To sum up all, we may 
say that at6W¢ would always restrain a good man from an un- 
worthy act.” In a footnote, found on pages 71 and 72, he con- 
demns the translation “Shamefacedness,”’ and says: “It is inex- 
cusable that all modern reprints of the Authorized Version should 
have given in to this corruption.” 


According to Bishop Ellicott, aiéu¢ ‘“‘marks the innate shrink- 
ing from anything unbecoming.” 


I Timothy v:1, 2. “Rebuke not an elder (xpecGutéew), but 
exhort him as a father; the younger men (yewtéeouc) as brethren: 


the elder women xpecGutépac as mothers; the younger (vewtéoac) 
as sisters, in all purity.” Rev. Dr. W. K. Brown renders this 
passage as follows: “Rebuke not an elder (npecbutépw), but en- 
treat such as a father; the younger men (vewtép0uc) as brethren; 
the eldresses (teecButéeas) as mothers, and younger female min- 
isters (vewtéoas) as sisters, with all purity.” He says further: 
“The common version of our Bible would convey the idea that 
these directions were simply intended for the private members of 
the church. That we are correct in limiting these words to an 
officiality, anyone may satisfy himself by reading the ninth and 
fifteenth verses inclusive of this chapter” (“Gunethics,” p. 122). 

Bishop Ellicott makes the words pecBitepoc, xeecBireoa, 
yeMteeos, and vewtéoaw indicative of age, rather than office. Both 
views have supporters. We call attention to these verses as pre- 
liminary to our study of v:9-12. We know from ecclesiastical 
history that in the primitive church there were “eldresses” 


~ 


334 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


(xpecQiteoat). They were also styled “presbyteresses,’ or 
“presidents.” Webster defines “presbyteress” as follows: “In 
the early and medieval churches, a female presbyter or elder, one 
of those aged widows who were dedicated to the service of the 
church and constituted an ecclesiastical order.” 

Tertullian declared that women appeared in every early ref- 
erence to ecclesiastical orders. He writes “Four titles are ap- 
plied to the women clergy, all of which occur in the New Testa- 
ment.” Among these he mentions the “presbyteress’ and 
designates it as an “Apostolic order.” Luker and Malleson main- 
tain that “widow,” like “elder,” was a title of seniority, and was 
“unknown in Roman epigraphy for a woman who had lost her 
husband.” We are told that in catacomb frescoes bishops and 
women-elders are pictured seated in Episcopal chairs. In a work 
entitled “Origin of Monasticism” is found this statement: “Seats 
in the Presbytery show that ‘widows’ formed a bench of women- 
elders.” A record of these “seats” in the Presbytery was extant 
in Rome as late as the ninth century. 

The office of presbyteress was abolished by the Council of 
Laodicea (363 A.D.) Canon xi: “That one ought not to establish 
(xa0tetac8a) in the church the women called xpecGutida¢ or presi- 
dents” (reel tod wh év exxAnota xabtoracba). The word xa0to- 
sao0a here rendered “establish,” is elsewhere rendered “ordain.” 

The word teesbutéeas appears in I Timothy v:2, but in Titus 
11:3 we have npecbittsac—“presbyteresses” or “presidents.” 
IIpecGittda¢ is rendered in Latin by both Dionysius Exiguus and 
Hervetus, “presbyter” and “presidents.” According to Lambert, 
“so called because they sat in front of other women in a place 
appointed for themselves.” 

In a note in Codex Canonum Ecclesie Universe, Lambert 
says: “These, it will be observed, are not called apecButeptdac 
or teorocae (presbyteresses or priestesses), an order which Epiph- 
anes denied to have ever existed in the Christian Church.” Right 
here we call attention to the word teponpenetc. (Titus ii:3) ren- 
dered in our English Versions—“reverent in demeanor” (R. V.) 


PAULINE MANDATES 335 


“behaviour as becometh holiness” (A. V.). Ieoompemets is a com- 
pound of two Greek words—tepé¢ and xoeéxw. The primary 
sense of the latter is “to stand out, to be conspicuous, to be emi- 
nent.” Its secondary meaning is “to be becoming, seemly, fit.” 
‘Ieeéc signifies, “sacred, consecrated to the deity, pertaining to 
God.” Its derivatives are teget¥c—“priest”—‘“one who offers 
sacrifices and in general is busied with sacred things’; teedbutos 
—“sacrificed”’; “offered in sacrifice’; tegov—“a sacred place, 
temple.” | 

The Apostle Paul uses this word teeé¢ in I Corinthians ix:13, 
“Know ye not that they which minister about sacred things 
(ot ta teok épyatéwevor) eat of the things of the temple (tepod), 
and they which wait upon the altar have their portion with the 
altar ?” 

Trench, in “New Testament Synonyms,” after commenting on 
the rarity of this word in the New Testament, Septuagint, and 
Apocrypha, says: “To persons, the word elsewhere also is of 
rarest application, though examples are not wanting. Thus 
tepd¢ &vOewxog is in Aristophanes (Rane, 652) a man initiated 
in the mysteries; kings for Pindar are as having their dignity from 
the gods. .. . ‘leeé¢ answers very closely to the Latin ‘sacer,’ 
It is that which may not be violated, . . . its inviolable character 
springing from its relations, nearer or remoter, to God; and 9etoc 
and teed¢ being often joined together. .. . Thus the tepetg is a 
sacred person, as serving at God’s altar.” 

Dean Alford, commenting on the xpecbiteoa, I Timothy v:2, 
makes this statement: “There being, in this case, no official term 
to occasion confusion.” The word conjoined with zeéxw in Titus 
ii:3 is an “official term.’ It is applied to women and it occasions 
“confusion” to commentators. 

Translators have rendered the compound, tepotpetetc, “be- 
haviour as becometh holiness” (A. V.), “reverent in demeanor” 
(R. V.). This is inadequate; it by no means measures the full 
import of the word. A literal translation would be—“as becometh 
priestesses,’ or “as becometh sacred persons,’ or persons who 


bd 


336 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


minister in sacred things. Of this term tepetc, derivative from the 
word applied to these women, J. F. Denham, M.A., F.R.S., St. 
John’s College, Cambridge, England, says: “With which term the 
idea of sacrifice was always connected in ancient times.” The 
official import of the word is not to be ignored or concealed by 
generalities, even though it “occasion confusion.” The Authorized 
Version places in the margin—“holy women,” but this in itself 
does not express officiality. 
Dr. Hodge, in “Outlines of Theology,” p. 399, declares: 


“No priestly function is ever attributed to any New Testament 
officer, inspired or uninspired, extraordinary or ordinary. The 
whole duty of all these officers of every kind is comprised in the 
functions of teaching and ruling.” 


We do not dispute this assertion, but there is a further fact that 
in the primitive church, Christian clerics were frequently called 
“priests,” and women presbyters were called “presidents” and 
“priestesses.” This is well attested by patristic writings, and in the 
case under discussion, Titus 11:3, the Apostle applies to these women 
a term ordinarily associated with the priesthood. In its compound 
form it occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. Was this inad- 
vertence on his part, or was there design? Were the individuals 
referred to elderly laywomen, or was their authority a Divine 
bestowment and so recognized by the church? The evidence is 
before us, and we leave the verdict to the unbiased judgment of 
the reader. 

It is equally well established that in the primitive church there 
were “consecrated virgins” bound by the “public opinion of the 
church” to celibacy. Origen (Eccles. vii:4; Hospices, De Origen 
Monarchalus 1:10) says: “The ‘sacred virgins,’ or ‘ecclesiastical 
virgins,’ were an important part of the organization of the church 
in its first three centuries, and their names were enrolled on the 
list of church officials.” 

The Councils of Ancyra (315 A.D.), Valence (374 A. D.), Toledo 
(400 A.D.), and successive Councils, imposed a penalty on “con- 
secrated virgins” who married; they were censured for “going back 
from their profession”; for “falling from a higher vocation.” 





PAULINE MANDATES 337 


Ludlow, in “Woman’s Work in the Church” (p. 254, Appendix 
D), says: “We find that there was a register of such virgins 
(church virgins) similar to that of the widows; that they were 
supplied with victuals like the widows and the ministering clergy, 
at the expense of the church at first, and after Constantine, of 
the State, unless Pagan or Arian persecution interfered to stop 
their maintenance.” (See, for instance, Theodoret, Book I: Con. 
II; or Athanasius, Encyclic. to the Bishops, C. 4.) 

Mention in the writings of the Church Fathers show that “con- 
secrated virgins’ and “presbyterial widows’ were recognized 
orders in the primitive church. 


First Timothy v:9-12, “Let none be enrolled as a widow under 
three score years old, (having been) the wife of one man, well 
reported of for good works; if she hath brought up children, if 
she hath used hospitality to strangers, if she hath washed the 
saints’ feet, if she hath relieved the afflicted, if she hath diligently 
followed every good work. But younger widows refuse: for when - 
they have waxed wanton against Christ, they desire to marry; 
having condemnation, because they have rejected their first faith’ 
(American R. V. “Pledge’’). 

Bishop Ellicott takes the widows here mentioned to be presby- 
teresses. He says: “If this view be correct, verses 3-8 will seem 
to relate specially to the support widows are to receive; verses 
9-16 to their qualifications for an office in the church.’ He adds: 
“Their office was ‘presbyterial’ (rpecBittSe¢) rather than ‘diaconic.’ 
The external evidence,” he affirms, “for the existence of such a 
body, even in the earliest times, is so fully satisfactory, and so 
completely in harmony with the internal evidence supplied by 
verse 10sq., that on the whole (y) may be adopted with some 
confidence.” He maintains that the widows mentioned in verses 
3-8 are recipients of alms from the church; but the widows of 


verses 9-12 are office-holders—women presbyters. He says: “We 
find noticed in this chapter the yne« (widow) in the ordinary 


sense, 7) Sytws yHea, the desolate and destitute widow; 7 xaAct- 
Aeyyevn XNea (enrolled widow), the ecclesiastical or presbyterial 


338 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


widows.’ Of the young widows, mentioned in verse I1, he says: 
“They were not necessarily to be excluded from the alms of the 
church, but were only to be held ineligible for the ‘collegium 
viduarum. ” The law of Lycurgus provided that no one should 
become an “elder” under sixty years of age. 

The Apostle’s reason for rejecting the “younger widows” was 
that they would remarry. In doing so they “rejected their first 
faith.” Ellicott defines this as “their engagement to Christ not 
to marry again, which they virtually, if not explicitly, made when 
they attempted to undertake the duties of the presbyterial office’ 
(Pastoral Epistles, pp. 82, 86, 88, 89). 

The Apostle Paul was inflexible in his ruling that a digamus 
must not hold office in the church. If we turn to I Timothy iii:2, 
we find that the bishop must be “the husband of one wife.” A 
second marriage disqualified him for office. The same was true 
of the deacon (ii1:12), and here in I Timothy v:9 he provides 
that the presbyteress must be a woman of single marriage. He 
goes further and excludes the “younger widows” from the “col- 
legium viduarum,” lest they wax “wanton against Christ” and 
remarry. In doing so they have “condemnation because they have 
rejected their first faith.’ How comes it that churchmen have 
not clung as tenaciously to this ruling as to the Apostle’s supposed 
mandates against women functioning in a public capacity in the 
church? 


I Timothy 111 :8-13, “Likewise [must] the deacons be grave, not 
double-tongued, not given to much wine, nor greedy of filthy 
lucre,” etc. 

“Even so [must their] wives (yuvatxas) (be) grave, not slan- 
derous, sober, faithful in all things.” 

“Let deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children 
and their own houses well,” etc. (A. V.). 

The Revised Version renders the eleventh verse thus: “Women 
m like manner must be grave, not slanderers, temperate, faithful 
in all things.” 

Now the question is, to what women does the Apostle here 


PAULINE MANDATES 339 


refer—to womankind in general, or to some particular group or 
order? There are three answers: 


(1) The Authorized Version translates yuvatxac—“their 
wives ’—making these women the wives of deacons. This is so 
manifestly incorrect that it was rejected by both English and 
American Revisers. This interpretation is now quite generally 
discarded. It rests solely on assumption. 

(2) That the Apostle here rules in regard to women in general. 
While this explanation has the support of commentators who 
would deny women official position in the churches, it seems to 
the author of this volume even more unreasonable than the first. 
In this chapter the Apostle is giving explicit directions concerning 
the office-bearers of the church—the bishops and the deacons. He 
names the qualifications for the bishopric, then passes to the 
diaconate. In the very midst of his charge concerning deacons, he 
writes: “Women in like manner (must) be grave,” etc. Would 
the advocates of this second interpretation have us believe that 
the Apostle here ruled that women in general must be as grave 
as deacons? “In like manner’ ? 

Again the construction of the paragraph is against this view. 
According to these exegetes, the Apostle writes three verses of his 
charge concerning deacons (8-10), then “goes off at a word” and 
interjects.a verse (II) concerning women in general. After 
relieving his mind in this single verse, he bethinks himself of the 
deacons and returns to his former subject (12, 13). Must we 
conclude that this sober-minded Apostle could not restrain himself 
sufficiently to complete his ruling concerning office-holders before 
addressing himself to womenkind in general? This second ex- 
planation may well be characterized as “a vagary of exegesis.” 

(3) The third, and, to the author’s mind, the sane exposition 
of this eleventh verse is, that the Apostle was here giving instruc- 
tions concerning women deacons—not “deaconesses,” for, as else- 


where noted, no such word as é8taxévicce is found in the New 
Testament. In verses eight to ten and in verses twelve and thir- 
teen he rules concerning men, and in verse eleven concerning 
women deacons. This gives the charge a proper setting. 

The proof that there were women deacons in the early Christian 


340 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


church, with all the rights and privileges of the office, is indis- 
putable. The same is true of the woman elder. 


II Timothy ii:2: “The things which thou hast heard from me 
among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men 


(dv@emn0tc), who shall be able to teach (8:6é5a:) others also.” 

The word here translated “men” is &v@pmxog. It is a generic 
term and signifies “person”; “individual.” 

The Apostle Paul is now “ready to be offered up’; the time of 
‘ his departure “is at hand”; he is here giving his parting instruc- 
tions to Timothy, his “true child in the faith.” He forecasts the 
dangers that threaten the church in the future. If he had been 
as anxious to debar woman from the ministry as some of his suc- 
cessors would have us believe, he would have used the word 


dayne and forever have settled the question of sex. In dvne the 
thought of sex is made prominent. Instead of this he uses the 


generic word &y0ownos. 


After careful study of this entire question from all its angles— 
study extending over a period of years—the author is convinced 
that the Apostle Paul in no way discriminated against women. 
He enjoined upon both sexes to be obedient to the laws of the 
Empire, and to conform to the customs of the age in which they 
lived, when such laws and customs did not conflict with conscience. 
This was a matter of expediency. This “prince of the Apostles” 
was leagues ahead of his own and subsequent generations on the 
“Woman question.” 


XV 
CONCLUSION 
P HE Bible, as the inspired Word of God, has been an 


inestimable boon to humankind. Its entrance has given 

light; its leaves have been “for the healing of the 
nations”; but mistranslations and misinterpretations, such as noted 
in the preceding chapters, have been “an evil under the sun.” 
They have wrought detriment to the race; they have retarded 
sincere seekers in their efforts to acquire truth. Nowhere has 
prejudice wrought more insidiously and more disastrously than in 
its distortion of Scripture teachings concerning woman. By so 
doing it has inflicted irreparable injury—not only on one sex, but 
on the entire race. The maleficent results have been manifold. 
We call attention to the following: 


I: IT HAS METED INJUSTICE TO WOMAN: 

The wrongs inflicted in heathen lands have no place in this 
reckoning. We pass over the disabilities imposed during the second 
Jewish Commonwealth, and confine our study, in the main, to 
results occurrent in so-called Christian lands. In the second 
Chapter of this volume we pointed out how prejudice, fed and 
fostered by erroneous interpretation of Scripture, arrayed society 
against every member of the sex who manifested self-determina- 
tion or attempted self-development. It placed obstacles in the 
way of every woman who stepped aside from the beaten path; it 
barred doors against her ; it placarded her as a rebel against Divine 
will. 

In our study of the New Testament teachings concerning 
woman, repeated mention has been made of the law of Patria 
Potestas. Under its provisions the disabilities of woman were 
entire. This law, in all its rigor, prevailed when Christianity was 
introduced into the Roman Empire. A century and a half later, 

341 


342 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


under the rule of the Antonine Cesars (86-180 a.D.), we find 
woman almost completely emancipated. The manuscript of Gaius, 
a celebrated jurist of that age, shows that the legal disabilities of 
woman had been practically annulled. This writer devoted an 
entire volume to descriptions of the “ingenious expedients devised 
by Roman lawyers to evade the letter of the ancient law.” 

Eliza Burt Gamble, discoursing on this subject, says: “From 
facts at hand it is observed that the object of the Roman lawyers 
was to frame an edictal jurisprudence which should supersede 
the older law, or which in effect should annul its power.” The 
same writer says: “In the second century of the present era 
woman’s freedom had been practically won.” 

What wrought this social evolution? What effected this nulli- 
fication of the law of Patria Potestas in the brief period of a hun- 
dred and fifty years? A recent writer, averse to Christianity, 
attributes the change to “the principles involved in the Stoic 
philosophy.” Sir Henry Maine accounts for it after this sort: 
“Led by their theory of natural law, the jurisconsults had at this 
time assumed the equality of the sexes as a principle of their code 
of equity.” The author of this volume dissents from these views. 
If this change was effected by “the principles involved in the Stoic 
philosophy,” how came it to pass that these principles were not 
operative along this line during the three hundred years that pre- 
ceded the introduction of Christianity? Zeno, the founder of this 
system of philosophy, lived three centuries before the Christian 
era. He established his school in the ‘Painted Porch” at Athens. 
He made converts among scholars and statesmen, not only in 
Greece, but throughout the Roman Empire. He had adherents 
among the nobility, but in the three centuries that Stoicism ante- 
dated Christianity what did it accomplish toward the uplift of 
womankind? Did it effect the release of the thousand enslaved 
victims who ministered to the basest instincts of male worshipers 
in the Temple of Venus at Corinth? Did it manumit the dic- 
teriades at Athens, who were denied all freedom of action and 
served under the one law—“refuse no demand of a customer’? 
Did it abolish the auctioneering of beautiful auletrides to highest 
bidders at public gatherings where wine flowed freely? Did it 


CONCLUSION 343 


elevate the Grecian wife and make her a companion of her husband 
instead of his child-bearer? Did it abrogate the conventional law 
imposed on woman: “See as little as possible; hear as little as 
possible; inquire as little as possible”? And throughout the Roman 
Empire, did Stoicism ameliorate the rigors of the Patria Potestas 
before the advent of Christianity? It had three hundred years in 
which to inculcate its principles; in which to educate society and 
reconstruct the social system, but how much did it effect for the 
betterment of womankind before the issuing in of the Gospel 
dispensation? 

And those jurisconsults—how efficacious was their “theory of 
natural law,” “the principle of their code of equity,” in establishing 
the equality of the sexes before Christianity leavened the Roman 
Empire? 

Sir Henry Maine says: “Christianity tended somewhat from the 
very first to narrow this remarkable liberty.” The reference here 
is to the freedom accorded women during the rule of the Antonine 
Cesars (86-180 a.D.). Here is a remarkable statement; let us 
analyze it. 

Christianity was introduced into Rome at an early period— 
Meyer surmises during the lifetime of our Lord. Most writers 
on the subject are convinced that it was carried thither soon after 
the day of Pentecost, as “sojourners from Rome” were present 
on that occasion (Acts 2:10). The Epistle to the Romans was 
written 57 or 58 A.D. There was at that time a flourishing Chris- 
tian community in that city. It is safe to assume that Christianity 
was planted in Rome prior to 46 a.p. Now Sir Henry Maine 
charges that “Christianity tended somewhat from the very first” 
—46 a.pD.—“to narrow this remarkable liberty,” achieved during 
the reign of the Antonine Cesars—86-180 A.D. In other words, 
“Christianity tended somewhat to narrow this remarkable liberty” 
from forty to one hundred and forty years before it was an actual- 
ity. A remarkable statement! 

That Christianity energized “from the very first” for the eman- 
cipation of woman is evident from the following fact: One of the 
earliest charges brought against the Christians of Rome and the 
provinces, and which engendered persecutions, was that they were 


344 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


disturbing the social order; interfering with domestic relations; 
changing age-long customs. At Philippi Paul and Silas were 
haled before the magistrates, beaten and thrust into the inner 
prison on the charge: “These men, being Jews, do exceedingly 
trouble our city, and set forth customs which it is not lawful for 
us to receive, or to observe, being Romans.” Christians were stig- 


matized as “‘meddlers in other men’s matters” (d\Aototeticxomos). 

Ramsay says: “We have seen that the charges of breaking up 
the peace of family life formed the subject of anxious considera- 
tion and advice both to St. Paul and to St. Peter.”’ Of the word 


dAotetentoxoros, he says: “I cannot doubt that it refers to the 
charge of tampering with family relationships, causing disunion 
and discord,” etc. Christianity did not teach rebellion against con- 
stituted authority; it enjoined submission “to every ordinance of 
man for the Lord’s sake,” but it promulgated truths incompatible 
with injustice; it inculcated principles subversive of wrongdoing; 
it awakened and enlightened the public conscience. If Christianity, 
in its initiatory stages, produced such results, even to the extent 
of arousing persecution, what must it have effected in the period 
lying between its introduction and the close of the Antonine 
regimen? 

Notwithstanding the persecutions inflicted, Christianity made 
rapid strides throughout the Roman Empire, and even beyond its 
limits. As early as 170 A.D. we find a Christian prince, Abgar 
Bar Maanu—in Mesopotamia. It gained footing in Persia, Media, 
Bactria, and Parthia. Paul himself preached the gospel in Arabia. 
During his second missionary journey he, accompanied by Silas, 
came to Thessalonica, a city of Macedonia. The Jews residing 
there incited a mob against them, and the cry was: “These that 
have turned the world upside down are come hither also” (Acts 
xvii:1-6). The letter of the younger Pliny to the Emperor Trajan 
(A.D. 98-117) shows that Christianity had made such headway in 
Bithynia that the governor was at a loss to know how to proceed 
against it. “Great numbers of every rank and age and of both 
sexes” had become its converts. 

It was during this period—from 46 A. D. to 186 A. p.—the eman- 
cipation of woman was effected in the Roman Empire; the equality 


CONCLUSION 345 


of the sexes was established. Shall we attribute this reconstruc- 
tion to “the principles involved in the Stoic philosophy”? Shall 
we ascribe it to the jurisconsults’ “theory of natural law’—“a 
principle of their code of equity”? Or shall we accredit it to the 
leavening influence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? 

Right here we underscore a statement: Jf Christiamty wrought 
efficaciously along the line indicated, it must itself have assumed 
this attitude toward woman—otherunse it could not have been a 
motive power in the reconstruction of the social system. The 
primitive church must, in its polity and in the domestic relation- 
ships of its members, have exemplified the Pauline mandate: 
“There can be no male and female: for ye all are one in Christ 
Jesus.” In this fact we have testimony corroborative of what 
has been said in the preceding chapters of this volume. 

At this juncture we are confronted with a serious question. It 
is this: If Christianity wrought for the emancipation of woman; 
if it effected the equality of the sexes in the Roman Empire within 
a hundred years after its introduction, how, do we account for the 
fact that “this remarkable liberty”—an achievement of the Apos- 
tolic and post-Apostolic Ages (30 A.D.-I170 A.D.)—was entirely 
abrogated during the Old Catholic Age (170-323 a.p.)? What 
force lay back of this counter-current? What motive power 
effected this reversal? There is but one answer to this question— 
the church werarchs. 

We make no acrimonious charge when we say that in every age 
and clime religious magnates have been the most effective force 
in actuating the subjugation of woman. If the reader questions 
this allegation, we point in proof to the sacred literature of pagan 
cults; to the Oral law of the Hebrews; to the Institutes of 
Mohammed; to patristic writings; to the decretals of ecumenical, 
national, and provincial councils, and, furthermore, to the exposi- 
tory literature on the shelves of our theological libraries. These 
proponents and expounders have wrought on the highest instinct 
of the race—the religious impulse. They have urged upon both 
sexes that it is the Divine decree that woman should be in sub- 
jection to man. 


346 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


Rev. Annis F. F. Eastman, in an address before the “World’s 
Parliament of Religions,” in Chicago, 1893, said: 


“Before entering upon an investigation of the relation of religion 
to woman, we must decide what we mean by religion. If we mean 
any particular form of faith, body of laws, institutions, organiza- 
tion, whether Hindu, Greek, Hebrew, or Christian, then we are 
forced to the conclusion that no one of these has given to woman 
an equal place with man as the full half of the unit of humanity, 
for every organized religion, every religion which has become a 
human institution, teaches the headship of man, and that involves, 
in some measure and degree, the subjection of woman and her 
consequent inferiority.” 


This statement is broader in one respect than we are willing to 
allow. We must differentiate between the original contents of a 
religion and its increments; between the tenets of its founder and 
the accruments of expositors. Buddha, for example, avowed the 
equality of the sexes in matters spiritual, but turn to one of the 
Shasters called the Padma Puran, and see how Hindu priests 
overlaid the teaching of this religious founder: 


“A woman has no other god on earth than her husband. The 
most excellent of all good works she can perform is to gratify 
him with the strictest obedience. This should be her only de- 
votion. 

“Her husband may be crooked, aged, infirm; offensive in his 
manners. Let him also be choleric and dissipated, irregular; a 
drunkard, a gambler, a debauchee. Suppose him reckless of his 
domestic affairs, even agitated like a demon. Let him live in the 
world destitute of honor. Let him be deaf or blind. His crimes 
and his infirmities may weigh him down; but never shall his wife 
regard him but as her god. She shall serve him with all her might, 
obeying him in all things, spying no defects in his character, and 
giving him no excuse for disquiet. 

“Holding in low estimation her children, her grandchildren, and 
her jewels, in comparison with her husband; when he dies she will 
burn herself with him, and she will be applauded by the whole 
world for her attachment. 

“When in the presence of her husband, a woman must not look 


CONCLUSION 347 


on one side and the other. She must keep her eyes on her master, 
and be ready to receive his commands. When he speaks she. must 
be quiet and listen to nothing besides. 

“Let all her words, her actions, and her deportment give open 
assurance that she regards her husband as her god. Then shall 
she be honored of all men and be praised as a discreet and virtuous 
wife.” 


The Mosaic code was singularly free from sex bias; Rev. Annis 
F. F. Eastman says: “The laws of Moses exalt women.” But how 
about these same laws after they had suffered exposition at the 
lips of the Rabbim? Take, for example, the following: 

A wife complained to the great Rabbi Rav of the cruel treatment 
received from her husband. This expounder of the Mosaic law 
replied, “What is the difference between thee and a fish, which 
one may eat either broiled or cooked ?”’ 

Rabbi Yochanan quotes the Mishnic Rabbim as teaching that a 
husband may do as he pleases with his wife, “It is like a piece of 
meat, brought from the shambles, which one may eat, salt, roast, 
partially or wholly cooked.” 

Let the reader bear in mind that the Rabbim were elucidators 
of the Old Testament Scriptures. They were the recognized 
authority in all matters of casuistry. It was a principle universally 
accepted that their sayings were weightier than even the Law of 
Moses. “Unconditional obedience was required to every rabbinical 
precept.” A Rabbi outranked the High Priest. To dispute with 
such, or to murmur against him, “was a crime as great as to do 
the same toward the Almighty.” 

It was the rulings of these religious hierarchs that dragged 
woman from the exalted position assigned her under the first 
Jewish Commonwealth to her low estate under the second. It 
was to these “blind leaders of the blind” that Jesus said in reproof : 
“Ye have made void the word of God because of your traditions.” 

But how about the hierarchs of the Christian Church? Did they 
prove an exception? We turn to history for an answer. In the 
eighth chapter of this volume we studied the attitude of Jesus on 
this question. We noted that women accompanied Him on His, 
preaching tours through Palestine, and His disciples referred to 


348 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


them as “women of our company”; we found Mary seated in that 
“inner circle’ that gathered “at the Lord’s feet and heard His 
word.” We saw the women of His “company” early at the riven 
tomb, and heard the risen Christ commission them to herald His 
resurrection and ascension. We found further that never, by word 
or act, so far as the Gospel record shows, did the Divine Lord 
discriminate against woman. 

In the ninth chapter we studied the position assigned woman in 
the organization of the Christian church. How, on the day of 
Pentecost, she received the baptism of the Holy Spirit in like 
manner and in like measure as man; how, when the disciples “were 
all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria,” 
she too “went about preaching the word’’; how Philip the evan- 
gelist had four daughters “which did prophesy” ; how Priscilla took 
precedence of her husband in expounding the Word of the Lord 
to Apollos; we found throughout the Book of Acts prominent 
mention of the part that woman took in the propagation of the 
Gospel; how the first convert on European soil was a woman, and 
the first church established in her house. 

In the tenth, eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth chapters we studied 
Apostolic practice and teachings. We found the great Apostle to 
the Gentiles recognizing woman in every official position in the 
church, even the Apostolate. In addition to all this, we have 
scanned the pages of profane history and found that within a 
hundred years after the introduction of Christianity the equality 
of the sexes was established in the Roman Empire. 

We pass over a period of two centuries and look again in on the 
church and, lo, the change! We find woman silenced in the assem- 
blies of the saints; we find her driven from the ranks of the clergy 
and commanded not to prophesy; forbidden to approach the altar; 
debarred from every official position, allowed to serve only in the 
humble capacity of “deaconess” under the supervision of man. 
We behold her as a wife re-immeshed in the toils of the Patria 
Potestas. We ponder on the change and again we ask—What 
force lay back of this counter-current? What motive power 
effected this reversal ? 

That church magnates, and not Christianity itself, was respon- 





CONCLUSION 349 


sible for this reaction is proven by the following considerations: 

First: Christianity could not have wrought for the emancipa- 
tion of woman in the first and second centuries, and for her 
enslavement in the third and fourth. 

Second: If Christianity, in the third and fourth centuries, de- 
prived woman of the liberty she enjoyed in the Antonine period; 
if it forced her back into the low position she occupied before the 
Gospel advent, we must forgo all thought that it energized in her 
behalf in the first two centuries. We must concede that not Chris- 
tianity, but paganism, effected her release. We must disclaim the 
hue and cry that the Gospel of Jesus Christ emancipated woman. 
We must assent to the claim of Sir Henry Maine, Eliza Burt 
Gamble, and other profane writers, that Christianity tended from 
the very first to narrow the remarkable liberty achieved under “the 
principles involved in Stoic philosophy” and the jurisconsults’ 
“theory of natural law.” 

Third: Christianity could not effectuate the emancipation of 
woman in the Apostolic and post-Apostolic Ages and her enslave- 
ment in the Old Catholic Age without itself undergoing change. 
Change implies departure. If the Gospel of the Old Catholic Age 
was a departure from the Gospel of the Apostolic and post-Apos- 
tolic Ages, it was not in complete accord with the teachings of 
Jesus and the practice and precepts of His primitive disciples. 
There was maladjustment somewhere. 

Fourth: We must reckon with the fact that the suppression 
of woman in the church and her relegation to the background kept 
pace with the growth and assumptions of the hierarchy. A care- 
ful survey of the acts and the canons of ecumenical, national, and 
provincial councils and synods will verify this statement. 


Christianity in its initial stage was democratic. Jesus said to 
His followers: 


“Be not ye called rabbi: for one is your teacher and all ye are 
brethren. And call no man your father on earth; for one is your 
Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters; for 
one is your master, the Christ. But he that is greater among you 
shall be your minister. And-whosoever shall exalt himself shall' 
be humbled ; and whosoever shall humble himself shall be exalted.” 


350 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


“Ve know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and 
their great ones exercise authority over them. Not so shall it be 
among you; but whosoever would become great among you shall 
be your minister; and whosoever would be first among you shall 
be your bondservant; even as the Son of man came not to be 
ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom 
for many.” 

“He that is greater among you, let him become as the younger; 
and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, 
he that reclineth at meat, or he that serveth? Is not he that 
reclineth at meat? but I am in the midst of you as he that serveth.”’ 
When He washed the Apostle’s feet, He said: “If I then, the Lord 
and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one 
another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye also 
should do as I have done to you.” 


When James and John sought preferment, He rebuked them. 
When the Apostles wrangled over which of them should be the 
greatest, He said in reproof: “If any man would be first, he shall 
be last of all, and minister of all.” 

Simon Peter charged the elders of the Dispersion not to lord it 
over “the flock of God,” but to gird themselves with humility and 
to “serve one another.” 

The Apostle Paul made mention of James, Cephas and John 
as “those who were reputed to be somewhat,” but added: “What- 
soever they were, it maketh no matter to me; God accepteth not 
man’s person.” He called himself “the bondservant” of Jesus 
Christ. He wrote to the Galatians: “Through love be servants one 
to another.” To the Romans: “Set not your mind on high things, 
but be carried away with things that are lowly.” To the Corin- 
thians: “I, who in your presence, am lowly among you.” “For 
we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves 
as your servants for Jesus’ sake.” 

Jesus, in His censure of the scribes and Pharisees, said: “They 
make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their 
garments, and love the chief place at feasts, and the chief seats in 
the synagogues . . . and to be called of men, Rabbi. But be not 
ye called Rabbi: for one is your teacher, and all ye are brethren.” 





CONCLUSION 351 


We look in on the church a few centuries later and find these 
lessons in humility in discard. We see the bishops and presbyters 
—mayhap bishop-presbyters—robed in insignias of rank, seated on 
thrones apart from their fellow-Christians, while the deacons stand 
in attendance. We hear them addressed as “My lord’; “Your 
grace’; “Vicar of Christ”; “Prince of the Church,” etc., while the 
minor clergy and laymen acknowledge themselves to be “Your 
humble servant”; “Your dutiful and obedient servant,” e¢ al. 

In time we find these magnates of the church assembled in 
Councils from which the laity is excluded, and in which the subor- 
dinate ranks of the clergy have no voice. We hear them ordaining 
that no deacon may be seated in the presence of a bishop without 
his permission; no presbyter or deacon may preach if a bishop be 
present without dispensation ; laymen and women may not approach 
the altar, nor lift their voices in the songs of God’s house. If any 
reader doubts these statements we refer him to patristic writings 
and to the acts and canons of church councils. 

We have naught to do with the age-long controversy over the 
identity of bishop and presbyter, but for convenience we assume 
there are three orders of the clergy mentioned in the New Testa- 
ment—bishop, presbyter (or elder), and deacon. The Diotrephes 
of the later generations were not content with this simple classi- 
fication. It was incommensurate with their growing ambition, so 
they instituted the more august orders—Arch-bishop, Patriarch, 
and, in time, Cardinal and Pontifex Maximus. 

Professor Kurtz, commenting on the early struggle between the 
bishops and presbyters for supremacy, says: 


“This peaceful co-operating of the two orders undoubtedly soon 
and often gave place to unseemly rivalry, and the hierarchal spirit 
obtruding itself in the Protepiscopate, which first of all reduced 
its colleagues from their original equality to a position of subordi- 
nation, soon asserted itself over against the extraordinary offices 
which had held a place co-ordinate with, and in the department 
of doctrine and worship even more authoritative and important 
than that of the bishops themselves. They were only too readily 
successful in having their usurpation of their offices recognized as 
bearing the authority of a divine appointment. These soon com- 


352 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


pleted the theory of the hierarchal and monarchical rank of the 
clergy and the absurd pretension to having obtained from God 
the absolute fullness of His Spirit and absolute sovereign power.” 


In the primitive church the rights of the laity were duly recog- 
nized; they shared in the administration. Peter proposed the 
choice of a successor to Judas Iscariot, not to the Eleven, but to 
the hundred and twenty assembled in that “upper room” at Jeru- 
salem; and they, not the Apostles, “put forward two, Joseph called 
Barsabas, whose surname was Justus, and Matthias. And they 
prayed ... and they gave lots for them: and the lot fell upon 
Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven Apostles.” The 
laity, and not church magnates, nominated and elected Matthias 
to the Apostolate. 

We quote again from Professor Kurtz. In contrasting the con- 
stitution, worship, and discipline of the primitive church with that 
of the Jewish, he says: 


“In the council of the Christian church, on the other hand, with 
reference to all important questions, the membership of all be- 
lievers is called together for consultation and deliverance (Acts 
vi:2-6; xv:4, 22). A complaint on the part of the Hellenistic 
members of the church that their poor were being neglected led 
to the election of seven men who should care for the poor, not by 
the Apostles, but by the church.” 


In the disputation occurrent over imposing circumcision on 
Gentile converts, the Antiochian Christians deputized Paul and 
Barnabas to carry the matter to “the Apostles and elders” at Jeru- 
salem. But even on this occasion the church was called into con- 
sultation. Acts xv:4 we read: “And when they were come to 
Jerusalem, they were received of the church and the apostles and 
elders.” In Acts xv:22, “Then it seemed good to the Apostles 
and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men out of their 
company, and to send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas.” 

The Corinthian church had its congregational gatherings for the 
disposition of business. 

The Apostle Paul superscribed his Epistle to the Philippians 


CONCLUSION 353 


to “all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the 
bishops and deacons,” giving the “saints” precedence of the 
“bishops and deacons.” We note further that in this church there 
were several bishops, which would preclude autocratic power on the 
part of any one of them. In the Old Catholic age we find a 
reversal. The rights of the laity and subordinate clergy were cur- 
tailed from time to time, until finally all power lodged in the hands 
of the hierarchs. 
We quote further from the same author: 


“This relapse to the Old Testament standpoint was, moreover, 
rendered almost inevitable by the contemporary metamorphosis of 
the ecclesiastical, which existed as the necessary basis of human or- 
ganization, into a hierarchal organization, resting upon an assumed 
divine institution. For clericalism, with its claim to be the sole 
divinely authorized channel for the communication of God’s grace, 
was the correlate and the indispensable support of hierarchism, 
with its exclusive claims to legislative, judicial, disciplinary and 
administrative precedence in the affairs of the church” (Kurtz, 
Voli pr tos. 


“From the Nicene Council in 325 a.p. the bishops alone had a 
vote and the presence of the laity was more and more restricted” 
(Vol. I, p. 193). 

The relegation of woman to the background in the church kept 
pace with the growth of the hierarchy. Ramsay, in his “History 
of the Church in the Roman Empire,” after conceding the promi- 
nent position assigned woman in the primitive church, says: “The 
universal and Catholic type of Christianity became confirmed in 
its dislike of the prominence and public ministration of women.” 
The dislike “was intensified to abhorrence before the middle of 
the second century.” This writer makes this further charge: 
“Under the influence of this feeling the changes in Acts xvii:12 
and 34 arose in Catholic circles in Asia Minor.” The reference 
here is to the omission of ‘‘Damaris” in Codex Beze, and he adds: 
“There seems no doubt that this omission is deliberate and inten- 
tional.” His further reference is to Acts xvii:12, which was 
changed from “Greek women of honorable estate, and of men, not 


354 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


a few,” and made to read: “Of the Greeks and the honorable, 
many men and women.” Now it was impossible for these changes 
to have been wrought without the knowledge and connivance of 
the church dignitaries. 

We must reckon with the fact that these prelates were converts 
from Judaism—a Judaism suffering the blight of rabbinical in- 
struction; Greek converts with low inbred concepts of woman’s 
place in Divine and human economy; Roman converts, having 
back of them centuries of the law of Patria Potestas and Manus 
Viri. Moreover, they were several generations removed from 
personal contact with the Apostles and their immediate successors. 
Under such circumstances it was an easy matter to drift away 
from the standards and usages of the primitive church; easy to 
read their predilections into the Sacred Text. 

Rev. Annis F. F. Eastman, in his address before The World’s 
Parliament of Religions, referred to on an earlier page, made 
this declaration: 


“Organized Christianity is not the imitation of the life and 
teachings of Christ among His followers. Christianity is the teach- 
ing of Jesus, plus Judaism, plus the Roman spirit of law and 
justice, and Grecian philosophy, plus the ideals of medizval art, 
plus the nature of the Germanic races, plus the scientific spirit of 
the modern age.” He says further: “If it be urged that the 
progress of Christianity since Christ’s day has often seemed to 
be backward from His ideal, in reference to the man and the 
woman, there is but one answer—and that is, that Christianity, 
as He proclaimed it, soon became mingled with Jewish ideas and 
Greek philosophy, and received the impress of the Romans and 
the different people that embraced it” (“The World’s Parliament 
of Religions,” p. 757). 


The concern of the church today should be to divest Christianity 
of its increments, of its excrescences, and to hold fast to the “truth 
as it is in Christ Jesus.” 

Soon after his ascension to the throne, Constantine convened the 
first Ecumenical Council. It met at Nicza, a.p. 325. The Em- 
peror and 318 bishops were in attendance. Prior to this assem- 


CONCLUSION 355 


blage, Provincial Synods had attained the position of fixed and 
regularly recurring institutions. We find them in session as early 
as 170 A.D. In these Synodical conventions presbyters and deacons 
sat alongside bishops, and shared with them in the proceedings. 
According to Professor Kurtz, the laity in general attended and 
“no decision could be arrived at without the knowledge and ac- 
quiescence of the members of the church.” The decrees were 
communicated to remote congregations by Synodical rescripts. 
During the Apostolic and post-Apostolic periods, women were 
eligible to the office of presbyter and deacon, and as such would 
be entitled to a voice and vote in these convocations. The sum- 
moning of the first Ecumenical Council by Constantine 325 a.p. 
marked a new era in the Christian church. The bishops alone 
had a vote in this august body, and from thenceforth the presence 
of the laity was more and more restricted. The minor clergy were 
also denied recognition, and, in time, all legislative, judicial and 
administrative power centralized in the hierarchs. 

It is not within the scope of this volume to tabulate all the 
disabling acts passed by general, national, provincial, and diocesan 
Councils regarding laymen in general and women in particular. 
We cite but a few from Ecumenical bodies divesting the latter of 
rights and privileges previously possessed : 

The Council of Laodicea (352 A.D.) prohibited women serving 
as priests or presiding over the churches. 

Canon xi Council of Laodicea 365 a.p. decreed: “That one 


ought not. to establish (xa6tctac8at) in the church the women called 
moecButtsac or “presidents.” It is worthy of note that Tertullian 
and Cyprian commonly call the bishops “presidents” or “‘provosts 
of the church.” Council of Laodicea, Canon xliv, decreed 
“that women must not approach the altar.” 

The Fourth Synod of Carthage (398 a. D.), Canon 99, expressly 
declared : ““A woman, however learned and holy, may not presume 
to teach men in an assembly” (“Mulier quam vis docta et sancta 
viros in conventu docere non praesumat’). Canon 100: “A woman 
may not baptize.” Two hundred and fourteen bishops were in 
attendance at this Synod. 

The Council of Chalcedon (451 A.p.), Canon xv, forbade a 


356 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


deaconess being ordained before her fortieth year, “but if, receiv- 
ing the imposition of hands, and remaining some time in the 
ministry, she gives herself to marriage, doing despite to the grace 
of God, let her be accursed, together with her paramour.” 

The Council of Ancyra (357 A.D.), Valence (374 A.D.), Toledo 
(400 A.D.), and successive Councils, imposed a penalty on any 
ecclesiastical virgin or widow who married. The second edition 
of Justinian’s code (534 A.D.), the sixth Novel (535 a.D.), im- 
posed the death penalty “if a deaconess leave the ministry to enter 
marriage or to choose any other mode of life.” 

The Synod of Orange (441 A.pD.), the Synod of Epaone (517 
A.D.), the Synod of Orleans (533 a.D.), prohibited the ordination 
of deaconesses. 

So far as the investigation of the author has extended, the 
decrees concerning women, with very few exceptions, were restric- 
tive or prohibitive—an abridgment or an annulment of rights and 
privileges previously possessed. 

If the reader desires to pursue further a study of these acts of 
ecclesiastical councils, we refer him to the Codex Canonum by 
Dionysius Exiguus, or to other compilers. 

We stress the fact that after 325 a.p. hierarchs alone sat in 
Ecumenical, National, and Provincial Councils; they alone wrote 
their will into the law of the church; their voice and vote divested 
woman of every vestige of ecclesiastical office and authority. To 
fully comprehend the adverse attitude of these prelates one must 
acquaint himself with the patristic literature of the age. 

Not content with degrading woman to almost a nonentity in the 
church of Jesus Christ, these magnates further dealt her a stag- 
gering blow in her domestic and social relationships. We have 
already pointed to the fact that during the Antonine period the 
law of Patria Potestas had passed into desuetude, so far as the 
oppression of women was concerned, and the equality of the sexes 
was established in the Roman Empire. But with the rise and 
development of the church hierarchy, the old law was resuscitated, 
and, in its main features, fastened on womankind throughout 
Christendom for a period of almost two thousand years. This is 





CONCLUSION 357 


a serious charge and demands substantiation. We submit the 
following facts of history: 

On Constantine’s ascension to the throne, 323 A.p., Christianity 
was recognized as the religion of the Roman Empire. Union of 
state and church followed. While the Emperor was titular head 
of the latter, authority de facto lodged in the hierarchy. In every 
province and country where Christianity gained standing, church 
prelates were reckoned with, not only in matters of religion but, 
as time went by, more and more in affairs of state. Canon law 
grew apace and ecclesiastical courts extended their jurisdiction. 
All this had a bearing on the domestic and social status of woman. 
We take England as a notable example, for the following reasons: 

(1) The British government has been pronounced “the best 
government in the world.” 

(2) The vast territory over which it has extended its rule and 
on which it has impressed its laws. 

(3) It is one of the oldest and most enlightened Christian 
civilizations on the globe. 

In 55 8. c. Julius Cesar revealed Britain to the Roman world. 
A century later the Emperor Claudius undertook its conquest. In 
time the island was subdued and became a Roman province. The 
work of civilization followed. For three hundred years Rome 
maintained her supremacy in the island, but in the beginning of 
the fifth century she was compelled to withdraw her legions to 
defend Italy against the Goths; and Britain was left to withstand 
as best it could the invasions of the Jutes, Saxons, and Engles. 

With the defeat at Deorham (577 a. p.) the bulk of Britain was 
subjugated, and the conquerors took possession of the island. 
John Richard Green, in his “History of the English People,” 
says: 


“What strikes us at once in this new England is this, that it was 
the one purely German nation that rose upon the wreck of Rome. 
. . . Britain was almost the only province of the Empire where 
Rome died into a vague tradition of the past. . . . Its laws, its 
literature, its manners, its faith went with it. Nothing was stronger 
proof of the completeness of this destruction of all Roman life 
than the religious change which passed over the land. Alone 


358 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


among the German assailants of Rome, the English stood aloof 
from the faith of the Empire they helped to overthrow. The new 
England was a heathen country. Homestead and boundary, the 
very days of the week, bore the names of the new gods who dis- 
placed Christ.” 


There is proof that the Gospel gained an early entrance into 
Britain; historians say “probably through intercourse with the 
Romans.” There is an ancient tradition, whether reliable or other- 
wise we are not prepared to say, that a British king, in the middle 
of the second century, besought the Roman bishop Eleutherus to 
send Christian missionaries to the island, and his request was 
granted. Certain it is that by the end of the third century Chris- 
tianity had taken root in Roman Britain. But with the withdrawal 
of the Roman legions and the subsequent conquest of the island 
by the English, all this was changed. In the language of the afore- 
mentioned historian, “Roman roads indeed led to desolate cities. 
Roman camps still crowned hill and down. The old divisions of 
the land remained to furnish bounds of field and farm for the new 
settlers. The Roman church, the Roman country house were left 
standing, though reft of priest and lord. But Rome was gone.” 
“Its laws, its literature, its manners, its faith, went with it.” 

In 596 A.p. the long-interrupted intercourse with Rome was 
renewed by Pope Gregory I sending a mission to evangelize the 
Anglo-Saxons. Augustine, a Roman abbot, accompanied by forty 
monks, landed on the island. Prior to this, however, Christianity 
had again found ingress through the Britons who, on the invasion 
of the Anglo-Saxons, had been driven into North and South 
Wales. Augustine, on his arrival, found in the British church 
several divergences in respect of worship, constitution, and dis- 
cipline from the Roman practice. He insisted on conformity to 
the rules and regulations of the papal see. His Anglo-Saxons 
converts acquiesced to these demands. Not so the Britons. They 
repudiated the pretensions of the Roman hierarchy. A fierce 
struggle ensued. In the meantime, Pope Gregory conferred on 
Augustine archiepiscopal authority over the entire British and 
Anglo-Saxon church. This of course intensified the strife. The 


CONCLUSION 359 


matter ended in a complete and unconditional surrender to Rome. 
From thenceforth until the reign of Henry VIII, in the sixteenth 
century, the English church was a subject of the Roman see. 

An ecclesiasticism powerful enough to subjugate the Britons 
and the Anglo-Saxons in matters of religion would of necessity 
be a factor in the establishment of laws and customs. Up to the 
time of Augustine’s landing, and two and a half centuries after- 
ward, England had no written laws. All controversies were settled 
according to the lex non scripta, the unwritten, or common law— 
“a collection of maxims and customs . . . of higher antiquity than 
memory or history can reach.” According to legal phraseology: 
“Time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.” 

Now it is altogether unsupposable that these maxims and cus- 
toms are of equal antiquity. In the very nature of the case some 
would antedate others. Blackstone himself takes knowledge of 
this fact. Wharton defines “common law” as “a system of juris- 
prudence developing under the guidance of the courts so as to 
apply a consistent and reasonable rule to each litigated case. It 
may be superseded by statute, but unless superseded it controls.” 

It is by others defined as “the unwritten law (especially in Eng- 
land) ; the law that receives its binding force from immemorial 
usage and judgments of the courts. The term is often used in 
contradistinction from the statute law.” 

In the latter half of the ninth century, more than two hundred 
and fifty years after Augustine and his forty Roman monks landed 
in England, King Alfred codified the maxims and customs in what 
was subsequently known as his Dome-Book, “for the general use 
of the whole kingdom.” Upward of two centuries later Edward 
the Confessor prepared a second edition. Because of this, his- 
torians style Alfred the “Legum Anglicanarum conditor’ and 
Edward the Confessor the “Restitutor.” 

When Alfred the Great, in the last half of the ninth century, 
compiled the maxims and customs of his realm in his “Dome- 
Book,” “for the general use of the whole kingdom,” he also, 
unwittingly, compiled them for a large part of Christendom. 
Wherever the Union Jack has unfurled, the common law has 
followed. Not only England, but her dependencies have owned 


360 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


its sway. Except when modified or displaced by statute, it prevails 
today in a realm “on which the sun never sets.” 

When the English colonists came to America, they brought the 
common law with them. We quote from Sharswood. He says: 
“Tt is true that the common law was the substratum of the juris- 
prudence of the thirteen States by whom the constitution of the 
United States was first adopted. The men by whom it was framed 
had been educated under that system, and many of them lawyers. 
No doubt, upon the commonly received principles of interpretation, 
the language of that instrument, and the technical terms employed 
in it, are to be construed by the common law.” After pointing 
out how new States were parceled out of old and how others were 
ceded to the United States by France, Spain, and Mexico, he con- 
tinues as follows: “In Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, and California 
the common law has been adopted by express legislative enact- 
ment, so that Louisiana is the only State in which any other law 
prevails. In that State the law of France, which is the Roman 
civil law, with such modifications as obtained at the time of her 
purchase, is the foundation of her jurisprudence.” 

Since the birth of this Republic the common law of England 
has been the common law of the United States, and except where 
“superseded by statute,” it controls. It is the “substratum of the 
jurisprudence” of every State in the Union with the exception of 
Louisiana, which acceded with the Roman civil law. 

We are not concerned with common law in this connection only 
in so far as it relates to woman. A comparison of this instrument 
with the Roman law of Patria Potestas will reveal remarkable 
similarity. In its main features the former is almost a replica of 
the latter. How do we account for this? How came it to pass 
that Rome stamped her impress on the usages and laws of the 
Anglo-Saxons? We cannot explain it by pointing to the fact that 
the Roman legionaries were in Britain for a period of almost three 
hundred years—from the middle of the first century a.p. to the 
beginning of the fifth, Rome withdrew her legions more than a 
century before the conquest of the Britons by the Anglo-Saxons 
and they never returned. Add to this the fact that the vanquished 
fled before the invading hordes and took shelter in North and 


CONCLUSION 361 


South Wales—priesthood and people were driven out together. 
According to the historian, John Richard Green, “not a Briton 
remained as subject or slave on English ground.” Aside from all 
this, the invaders—Jutes, Saxons, and Engles—were heathen- 
pirates of the sea, and intensely hostile to every thing Roman. 

Neither can we explain the similarity of the two laws, in so far 
as they relate to women, on the supposition that the Anglo-Saxons, 
at the time of the conquest, held like view as the Romans on this 
subject. History precludes such assumption. The Engles and 
the Saxons were both of pure Teutonic stock, and the honor 
accorded woman by the ancient Germans is one of the outstanding 
facts of history. Injuries offered to women were estimated doubly 
or trebly higher than those offered to men. Private vengeance 
was permitted and the offender might be deprived of liberty or 
life. It is true that a woman was punished, when she transgressed, 
more severely than man, but it was due to the fact that she was 
considered less capable of the commission of crime, and because 
she received higher indemnity when injured. Wolfgang Menzel, 
the German historian, says: 


“In pagan times women were generally despised, and regarded 
as beings of an inferior order; but among the Germans, even in 
the earliest ages, they were considered as standing equal in point 
of honor to the men, and in many respects were even acknowledged 
to be superior. The honor in which women were held exercised 
so great an influence over the customs and character of the Ger- 
mans, and consequently over their arts and poetry, as to produce 
the romance by which their productions are mainly distinguished 
from those of the East, the Graeco-Roman, or antique. 

“An insult offered to female modesty or honor was deemed an 
unpardonable crime, and punished with death. 

“The day after the wedding the husband presented his wife with 
a gift, called the morning gift, of which she could not be deprived. 

“Every woman, possessed of sufficient strength, was free to 
carry arms. Women were also allowed to speak in council, and 
those noted for capacity and skill often headed great and important 
enterprises.” 


The Germans, although pagans, continued thus to honor woman 


362 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


until missionaries from Rome sought them out and Christianized 
them. 
Kurtz, in his “Church History,” says: 


“Tn the German states from the earliest times the superior clergy 
constituted a spiritual aristocracy which by means of their higher 
culture won a more influential position in civil life than the secular 
nobles. In all important affairs of state the bishops were the 
advisers of the king; they were almost exclusively employed on 
embassies; on all commissions there were clerical members and 
always one-half of the Missi dominici were clerics. This nearness 
to the person of the king and their importance in civil life made 
them rank as one of the estates of the realm” (p. 501). 


If not the legionaries; if not the Anglo-Saxons themselves 
made Roman impress on the common law in its relation to woman, 
how about the Britons? For almost three hundred years they 
were subjects of Rome before the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons. 
May they not have accepted Roman ideals concerning the sex and 
transmitted them to the newcomers? ‘That this is altogether im- 
probable is evident from the following reasons: 

(1) The Britons were driven out of the conquered territory 
and took refuge in Wales. “Not a Briton remained as subject or 
slave on English ground.” As time elapsed and some drifted 
back to their native soil, their animosity toward the Anglo-Saxons 
was so intense that they refused to make any effort toward secur- 
ing their conversion to Christianity. When the Roman Abbot 
Augustine and his forty monks landed in England, 596 a.p., one 
of the demands he made of the British church was that it join him 
in an attempt to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons. This was one of 
the questions at issue between them. 

(2) In the second place, the Britons themselves were unfriendly 
to the Romans. It is true that for almost three hundred years 
they had been subjects of the Empire, but they had no alternative. 
Legionaries kept them from rebellion. It is also true that mis- 
sionaries from Rome came among them and established churches, 
but when the legionaries were withdrawn and the marauders of 
the sea poured in upon them, Roman laws, literature, manners and 
religion disappeared before the onsweeping hordes. 


CONCLUSION 363 


When the Britons fled to Wales no doubt but some of the faith- 
ful pastors accompanied their flock. At least two hundred years 
had elapsed since the missionaries came among them. In the 
meantime, native preachers had been trained, and these were not 
wholly subservient to Rome. This was manifest when Augustine 
asserted his archiepiscopal authority and commanded conformity 
to the laws and usages of the Roman see. The Britons repudiated 
the pretensions of the Roman hierarchy, and it was only after 
prolonged and bitter controversy that they were brought into 
submission. 7 | 

If not the legionaries, the Anglo-Saxons, or the Britons, placed 
the trademark of Rome on the common law of England, in so far 
as it related to woman, how else may we account for it? 

The author finds but one answer to this question. It is this: 
There was in the island a strong Romanizing force not yet reck- 
oned with—the Roman clerics. They came to Britain soon after 
its annexation to the Empire. They continued their propagandism 
for more than two hundred years before the invasion of the Jutes, 
the Saxons and the Engles forced their departure. In 596 a.p. 
they returned in the person of Augustine and his forty Roman 
monks. They came bearing in their hands the canon law and 
compelled both Britons and Anglo-Saxons to bow to the mandates 
of the Roman see. Blackstone defines the canon law as “a body 
of Roman ecclesiastical law, relative to such matters as that church 
either has, or pretends to have, the proper jurisdiction over. This 
is compiled from the opinions of the ancient Latin fathers, the 
decrees of general councils, and the decretal epistles and bulls of 
the Holy See.” 

These “Ancient Latin fathers’ were of the prelatic order, and 
as such sat in the ecumenical councils. Their writings testify to 
their low concept of woman. They held to the supremacy of man 
and made the wife in all things subservient to the will of her lord. 
Only bishops, archbishops, metropolitans, and patriarchs had a 
voice and vote in these general councils of the church, so we are 
warranted in our affirmation that the canon law was the expressed 
will of the hierarchy. 

Not only were these missionaries exponents of the canon law— 


364 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


a law that degraded woman—but they were Romans—bred and 
reared in homes where the status of woman was determined by 
the law of Patria Potestas and Manus Viri. They were familiar 
with Roman maxims and customs. They were schooled in these 
usages. Add to all this the training received in their study of 
patristic writings, and we can understand, at least in a measure, 
how well fitted they were to promulgate these teachings and prac- 
tices among a people in a formative stage of civilization. The 
fact that they were religious teachers and these Anglo-Saxons 
their converts, educated while the masses were untaught, would 
give them immense influence in the settlement of controversies. 
In all this we have an explanation of the fact that the common law, 
especially as it relates to woman, is, in many respects, almost a 
fac-simile of the Roman law of Patria Potestas. These men 
adjudicated disputes submitted to them according to the rules of 
Roman jurisprudence. Under the circumstances one could scarcely 
expect them to do otherwise. In time their rulings would have 
the weight of lex non scripta. Even in cases where these clerics 
were not arbiters, their opinions would have weight in their com- 
munities. For two and a half centuries this was the sole method 
of procedure in matters under controversy. 

Concerning the common law of England, Blackstone says: “In 
the knowledge of this law consisted great part of the learning 
of those dark ages; it was then taught, says Mr. Seldon, in the 
monasteries, in the universities, and in the families of the principal 
nobility. The clergy, in particular, as they then engrossed almost 
every other branch of learning, so (like their predecessors, the 
British Druids) they were peculiarly remarkable for their pro- 
ficiency in the study of the law. . . . The judges therefore were 
usually created out of the sacred order, as was likewise the case 
among the Normans; and all the inferior offices were supplied by 
the lower clergy.” 

In the latter part of the ninth century King Alfred, “Legum 
Anglicanarum conditor,’ prepared his Dome-Book. It was a 
compilation of the recognized maxims and customs in various parts 
of his realm, and was intended “for the general use of the whole 
kingdom,” and acquired the name “common law.” 





CONCLUSION 365 


King Alfred was a devout churchman, as was also Edward the 
Confessor—the Restitutor. The latter is honored as a saint in 
the Roman Catholic church, and the former was characterized by 
Freeman as “a saint without superstition.’ Without doubt both 
these monarchs, in conformity to the practice of the age, had a 
prelate who served as private chaplain and confessor. According to 
John Richard Green, “The first missionaries to the Englishmen, 
strangers in a heathen land, attached themselves necessarily to the 
courts of the kings, who were their earliest converts, and whose 
conversion was generally followed by that of their people. The 
English bishops were thus at first royal chaplains, and their diocese 
was naturally nothing but the kingdom.” 

Now it is not supposable that either of these devout monarchs 
would undertake and prosecute tasks of such magnitude as the 
compilation or the restoration of the common law of England 
without advising with the prelates. The private chaplain and 
confessor would especially occupy vantage ground as counselors. 

Blackstone (Vol. II, pp. 60, 61) says: “In the time of our 
Saxon ancestors, the bishop of the diocese sat with the alderman, 
or in his absence, the sheriff of the county in the county court.” 

The same high authority further declares that “the original or 
first institution of parliament is one of those matters which lies 
so far hidden in the dark ages of antiquity that the tracing of it 
out is a thing equally difficult and uncertain” (Vol. I, p. 147). 
In the Introduction to Volume I, page XXV, we have this state- 
ment: “Parliaments, in some shape, are of as high antiquity as the 
Saxon government in this island.” 

It was through the subtle influence of the clerics—every man 
of whom at that period was a minion of the papal see—that the 
hierarchs of the church were seated as “lords spiritual” in the 
British parliament, “in which the legislative power and the supreme 
and absolute authority of the state is vested.” In later time we 
find in this august body two archbishops, twenty-four bishops; 
twenty-six mitred abbots and two priors, and the chronicler adds: 
“Tn those times equal in number to the temporal nobility.” Chitty 
says: “On the union with Ireland, an addition of four representa- 
tive spiritual peers, one archbishop, and three supreme bishops 


366 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


was made for Ireland, to sit by rotation of sessions’ (Blackstone, 
Vol. I, Book I, Chap. 2, p. 155). 

Nor was this all. Ecclesiastical courts were established, which 
had sole jurisdiction over certain matters of law, among which 
were all cases relating to marriage, divorce, and alimony. The 
law that prevailed in these courts was ecclesiastical—a combination 
of canon and civil law. The latter embodied in slightly modified 
form the Roman Patria Potestas. 

We note particularly that these ecclesiastical courts, which ad- 
judicated according to ecclesiastical law, had jurisdiction over cases 
relating to marriage, divorce, and alimony. Blackstone says that 
common lawyers borrowed—“especially in ancient times, almost 
all their notions of the legitimacy of marriage from the canon and 
civil laws.” 

But all these were not the only achievements of the hierarchy. 
“Benefit of clergy” was also allowed. Under its provisions clergy- 
men were exempted from “criminal process before a secular 
judge.” A further claim was permitted. The kingdom was 
divided into ecclesiastical provinces, dioceses, archdeaconaries, 
deaneries and parishes, and tithes were imposed on the inhabitants 
for the benefit of the church. It was also decreed that the canon 
and civil law should be taught in the universities. Verily Pro- 
fessor Kurtz was right when he appraised the English clergy— 
many of whom were foreigners—‘“an influential order in the State, 
with carefully defined rights.” 

It was ecclesiastics who put the stamp of Rome on the common 
law of England, and through that law degraded womankind over 
a large part of Christendom—in England and her dependencies, 
and, through her colonists, in the United States of America. 

We now invite the reader’s attention to some of the provisions 
of the common law which are, not in phraseology but in substance, 
a duplication of the Roman law of Patria Potestas. 

(1) At common law, as a general rule, a married woman was 
incapable of making contracts. “Her contracts are absolutely 
void.” “All deeds executed, and acts done, by her, during cover- 
ture, are void; except it be a fine, or the like matter of record, in 


CONCLUSION 367 


which case she must be solely and secretly examined, to learn if 
her act be voluntary” (Blackstone, Vol. I, p. 444). 

(2) The property of a married woman, real and personal, vests 
in her husband. “A woman’s personal property by marriage be- 
comes absolutely her husband’s, which at his death he may leave 
entirely away from her.” He is “absolutely master of the profits 
of the wife’s hands during coverture.” Blackstone says: “Our 
own common law has declared that the goods of the wife do 
instantly upon marriage become the property and right of the 
husband.” We may be reminded that this law, has been modified 
by statutes. Our answer is that we are treating of common law, 
and not of its subsequent modifications. In Kentucky a sheriff 
waited outside a church door until the conclusion of a marriage 
ceremony, and then seized the bride’s coach and horses in pay- 
ment of the groom’s liabilities. At the hymeneal altar all her 
possessions passed automatically to her husband. 

Some years ago a man residing in Virginia wedded a woman 
who owned property. In time a child was born—a daughter. 
Later the wife died. Her property having passed to her husband, 
she was unable to make any provision for her child. The husband 
remarried. The daughter of his first wife and her stepmother 
could not agree, so the former was compelled to leave home and 
earn a livelihood by teaching. The salary allowed in those days 
was meager. The father, at his death, willed all the property 
acquired from his first wife to his second wife and her children, 
while the daughter of his first wife was left penniless. In all 
probability this husband would have scrupled to lay hold on the 
possessions of a fellow-man without just compensation, but be- 
lieved himself justified in appropriating his wife’s estate and using 
it to his own profit, and at death disposing of it as he saw fit. 
This, according to his view, was his “right” as a husband. The 
Golden Rule applied to all mankind, but not to woman—especially 
a wife. If this husband had died prior to his first wife, he could 
have willed away the property acquired from her through marriage 
and she would have had no redress at law. It was a cruel fiction 
in times agone for a man to stand at the marriage altar and _ 
solemnly recite “with all my worldly goods I thee endow,” know- 


368 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


ing full well that from thenceforth he would be sole possessor of 
his bride’s earthly belongings. 

(3) Not only did common law divest a married woman of all 
her possessions and transfer them to her husband, but it robbed 
her of every opportunity to acquire property, real or personal, 
during coverture. If she sought employment outside her home, 
her husband was entitled to her wages, and she had no claim 
against him. At one time in England women took the place of 
mules and drew the coal cars from the mines on their hands and 
knees, but these poor driven slaves received no requite for their 
toil. Their husbands collected the price of their flesh and blood 
and expended as pleased them. 

The United States of America cannot point the finger of shame 
at England in this matter. The same law prevailed in this country 
until set aside by statute in some States of the Union. It was this 
injustice that stirred the soul of Elizabeth Cady when but a child. 
Her mother was dead and she spent much time in the office of her 
father, Judge Cady. She heard the appeals of drunkards’ wives; 
heard them tell of how they toiled at the washtub to earn bread 
to feed their half-starved children, and their husbands collected 
their wages and spent the same for liquor. The child pleaded with 
her father in behalf of these distressed wives and mothers. The 
Judge explained to his little daughter that while he sympathized 
with these poor women, he could do nothing to relieve them, for 
the law gave the husband the power to collect his wife’s wages. 
Elizabeth, on learning this, determined to remedy the evil by 
seizing an opportunity to cut these wicked laws out of her father’s 
books when he was absent from his office. She confided her 
purpose to her nurse, who in turn informed the father. Judge 
Cady took his child upon his knee and made clear to her that such 
drastic conduct on her part would not obviate the wrong. The 
legislature alone had power to set aside these unjust laws. In an 
outburst of indignation Elizabeth vowed that if she ever reached 
womanhood she would go to the legislature and effect the change. 
She lived to execute her purpose. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was 
one of the women who, in 1848, signed the call for the first 


CONCLUSION 369 


woman’s rights convention in America. We subjoin their declara- 
tion of independence adopted at Seneca Falls, New York. 

Not only could a wife collect no wages for work performed out- 
side the home, but neither could she claim remuneration for any 
service rendered within her husband’s domicile or on his estate. 
She might toil as laundress, scrubwoman, cook, dishwasher, cham- 
bermaid, seamstress, nurse, hostess and housekeeper in general, 
but in the eyes of the law her labor had no monetary value. An 
unmarried maid in the kitchen could demand her hire, and expend 
it as she deemed proper; the unmarried washerwoman at the close 
of the day could require her wages. Not so the wife and mother. 
No matter how long the hours or how irksome the toil, she earned 
nothing. Her husband supported her; anything she received from 
him, he gave her. If he intrusted her with funds to meet house- 
hold expenses, they were an “allowance.” 

Under common law, no matter how long or how indefatigably a 
married woman toiled, she could acquire nothing in her own right. 
She must ever be a pensioner on her husband’s bounty. 

A couple residing in Illinois were in impecunious circumstances 
when they wedded. Both were frugal and industrious, but neigh- 
bors agreed that the wife toiled harder than the husband. Years 
went by and through their joint efforts and increased value of 
land, he—not they—acquired a fortune. The farm was sold at 
handsome profit and the thousands of dollars realized were de- 
posited in the bank to the sole credit of the husband. The author 
vouches for the statement that when that wife desired a modest 
sum of money to purchase curtains for her drawing-room, she 
importuned for weeks before her husband reluctantly granted her 
request. Of the thousands of dollars in the bank, acquired 
through joint efforts of husband and wife, she could legally claim 
not one penny. Long years of arduous toil netted her nothing but 
food and the garments her husband loaned her. We use the 
term “loaned” advisedly, for courts have ruled that, under the 
common law, the apparel worn by a wife is the property of her 
husband. We may be reminded that under the law this wife could 


1 (See Appendix B.) 


370 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


go to the store and make her purchase and order the bill to be 
sent to her husband. That is true, but as this woman remarked, 
“then there would be trouble.” 

A married woman may toil for years in the home, on the farm 
or in her husband’s place of business; she may secure employment 
outside all these, and add her wages to the family income, but if 
she dies before her husband she may not bequeath one dollar of 
the acquired property. She can dispose of nothing; everything 
vests in her husband. If, on the other hand, he dies before his 
wife, he may devise everything away from her except her dower. 

The dower is not, as is sometimes misunderstood, one-third of 
the husband’s estate; it is only the income from such third, and 
only a life appertainment. At death the wife can make no dis- 
position of her dower. It reverts to heirs named in her husband’s 
will, or if he dies intestate, the law determines its disposal. Statu- 
tory enactments have changed somewhat the rights of dower, but 
that is aside from the question under consideration. Our concern 
is common law dating to a time “whereof the memory of man 
runneth not to the contrary.” 

Blackstone says: “By marriage, the husband and wife are one 
person in law.’”’ He might have added—And the husband that 
one. He comments further: “The very being or legal existence 
of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is in- 
corporated and consolidated into that of the husband.” Apropos 
we quote the following eulogium found in Hooker’s “Ecclesiasti- 
cal Polity”: 


“Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is 
the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things 
in heaven and earth do her homage—the very least as feeling her 
care, the greatest as not exempted from her power; both angels 
and men and creatures, of what condition soever, though each in 
different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring 
her as the mother of their peace and joy.” 


Take also the following from C. J. Marshall: “That every man 
has a natural right to the fruit of his own labour is generally ad- 
mitted: and that no other person can rightfully deprive him of 


CONCLUSION 371 


those fruits, and appropriate them against his will, seems to be 
the necessary result of this admission.” 

(4) The common law, in one respect, degraded the wife even 
lower than the Patria Potestas. Under Roman law her status 
was that of daughter of her husband. In common law she was 
rated as his servant—slave would be the more appropriate designa- 
tion—for she could claim no wages. Dunlap, in his “Abridgment 
of Elementary Law,” says: “At common law the disability of 
a married woman is almost entire, her personal existence being 
merged, for most purposes, in that of her husband.” “In general, 
whatever she earns, she earns as his servant, and for him, for in 
law her time and labor, as well as her money, are his property.” 

Compare the above with Webster’s definition of “slave”: “A 
person who is held in bondage to another; one who is wholly 
subject to the will of another; one who is held as a chattel; one 
who has no freedom of action, but whose person and services are 
wholly under the control of another.” 

In reference to common law, Buckle, in his “Tecate, ”” says: 
“This imperishable specimen of human sagacity is, strange to say, 
so grossly unjust toward women that a great writer upon that code 
has well observed that in it women are regarded not as persons 
but as things; so completely were they stripped of all their rights, 
and held in subjection to their proud and imperious masters.” 

The legal term for husband was “her baron, or lord.’ The 
legal term for wife was his “feme’”—female. Ecclesiastics ex- 
acted of every woman as she stood at the hymeneal altar, a solemn 
promise to “obey him and serve him.” 

If a wife suffered injury in her person from outside sources, she 
could bring no action for redress without the concurrence of her 
husband, and in his name as well as her own. If damages were 
awarded, they went to the husband. The wife had no claims upon 
them. If the husband brought suit to recover damages for in- 
juries inflicted on his wife, he did so on the plea that she was his 
servant, and he was deprived of her ministries. 

But the degradation of the wife was made complete by rating 
her as the sexual servant of her husband, and if injured, awarding 
him damages on this score. A wife who suffered an automobile 


372 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


accident in the present decade told a friend she never experienced 
such humiliation as when, in the open court room, her attorney 
defined her status under the law. These are cruel facts, but they 
are facts, and because they are shameful actualities, the author 
dares, in the language of Wendell Phillips, to be “as harsh as 
truth and as uncompromising as justice.” 

(5) Another prerogative of the husband in common law was 
that of inflicting corporal punishment on his wife. Blackstone 
says: “The law thought it reasonable to intrust him with this 
power of restraining her, by domestic chastisement,’ but adds: 
“This power of correction was confined within reasonable bounds.” 
He informs his readers that the civil law “gave the husband the 
same, or a larger, authority over his wife,” allowing him, for some 
misdemeanors, to lash and club her severely. After enlightening 
the legal profession along these lines, this sage in common law 
observes as follows: “Even the disabilities which the wife lies 
under are, for the most part, intended for her protection and 
benefit: so great a favorite is the female sex of the laws of Eng- 
land.” 

The author recently heard two ministers, one from New York 
and the other from Illinois, relate how English husbands in the 
community where these pastors resided had inflicted corporal pun- 
ishment on their wives. When admonished to desist from such 
performance in the future, the answer in both cases was sub- 
stantially the same: “Things have come to a pretty pass in this 
country when a man is not allowed to whip his wife.” 

But this privilege of the husband was not restricted to England 
and her colonies; it extended to the United States. Until within 
‘a few years, a man residing in Connecticut might beat his wife 
with a rod “not thicker than his thumb”—so great favorites were 
the wives in that New England commonwealth. 

In every State of the Union, where not superseded by statute, 
the old law theoretically prevails, but public sentiment, in these 
latter days, is so relentless in this matter that irate husbands are 
somewhat chary about exercising this “ancient privilege.’ The 
Roman Patria Potestas allowed a husband to put his wife to death. - 
The common law put some restraint upon a husband in this 


CONCLUSION 373 


respect. He might not, by violent means, deprive her of life, but 
he might by ill-usage impair her health and shorten her days. 

(6) The most poignant feature of the common law, in its re- 
lation to woman, and one that allies it to the Roman Patria 
Potestas, is that which empowers the husband and father to rob 
the wife and mother of her offspring. No matter how depraved 
a man might be, nor how capable his wife, he could by will 
assign his children to the care of a guardian residing in any 
quarter of the globe, and this regardless of the moral character 
of such custodian. A case is on record where a prospective father 
bequeathed his unborn child to relatives in a foreign land. If 
a husband died intestate, the court presumed the wife incapable 
of caring for her offspring, and appointed a guardian. 

If, for some cause, a husband and wife separated, the law, re- 
gardless of the fitness of the parties, assigned the children to the 
father. A case is on record where a woman of unblemished char- 
acter, who had for years supported a worthless, drunken husband 
by keeping boarders, decided to leave him. He at once threatened 
to take from her their only child—a son. She consulted several 
attorneys, and each in turn assured her that her husband’s rights 
were paramount; that only the mother of an illegitimate child 
had priority of claim against the father. This woman of irre- 
proachable character went into court and swore that her husband 
was not the father of her child. It was her last resource. Every 
auditor in that court room, even the Judge himself, disbelieved 
her statement, and accepted the oath as from a mother distraught 
at the thought of losing her boy. 

The author recently learned of a minister’s daughter alienated 
from her husband. By process of law he gained possession of their 
only child. The mother was inconsolable over the loss of her 
little one and became violently insane. She died soon after. 

Some months ago a physician in Florida deserted his wife, tak- 
ing with him all their children. The plaint of the agonized mother 
was—‘‘Oh, if he had only left me my crippled child!” The author 
knew personally a devoted Christian woman, young and beautiful, 
who immolated herself by living with a husband who was a moral 
leper. While he “wasted his substance in riotous living,” she 


374 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


was in want. The writer advised her to seek divorce, assuring 
her that God’s law released her. With downcast eyes, and in 
almost inaudible tones, she answered: “I endure it all for E *S 
sake’”’—naming her ten-year-old boy. 

A gifted woman in Pennsylvania, in order that she might have 
the care of her daughter—a girl of twelve or fourteen—rewedded 
the man she had divorced because of his shameless adulteries. 
Three years later the author met that woman and failed to 
recognize her. The suffering she endured had so wrought on 
body and mind that she was, apparently, verging on insanity—but 
she clung to her child. 

We are assured that cross victims sometimes agonize for days 
before death releases them; but down through the ages wives 
have suffered the tortures of crucifixion, from the altar to the 
tomb, rather than be separated from their children. 





Mother love is the nearest approach to the divine. 
“There is no Love like a mother’s— 
*Tis the sun that shineth forth, 
There is no Truth like a mother’s— 
’Tis the star that points the North, 
There is no Hope like a mother’s— 
’Tis the April in the clod; 
There is no Trust like a mother’s— 
*Tis the Charity of God; 
The Love and Truth, the Hope and Trust 
That makes the mortal more than dust.” 
(JoHNn Jarvis HoLpen.) 


When we think of the weary, often painful, period of gestation, 
when all the vital forces of the mother are drawn upon to nourish 
the growing fetus; of the pangs of parturition, when she passes 
into the “valley of the shadow of death’; of the months of lacta- 
tion when she pours her life substance into her child; of her 
sleepless nights and watchful days and ceaseless ministries of love 
—when we think of all these, we have by no means sounded the 
depths of a mother’s affection for her child. Oh, the Strabant 
matres that have walked the Dolorous Way! Oh, the Niobes 


CONCLUSION 375 


that have wept themselves into stone because of a cruel law that 
tore from their heart and bosom the object of their deepest de- 
votion, and handed it over to one who never suffered a pang in 
giving it existence! 

Every mother bears in her own person the Divine credentials 
of her mission, and to rob her of her trust, is a violation of a law 
of nature. It is cruelty to the mother; it is heartlessness to the 
child. The law of the jungle is more merciful in this respect 
than is the law of mankind. Throughout brute creation the male 
regards the maternal rights of his mate, and never molests her 
young while under her protection. Amid the beasts of the field 
and the fowl of the air, there is no such thing as paternal pre- 
rogative. Mother right is everywhere supreme except in the 
realm of humankind. 

This is not a dissertation on the cruelty of husbands. Far from 
it. Frances Willard once said, “The meanest thing on earth is 
a woman-hater, and the next meanest thing is a man-hater.” 
Down through the centuries there have been husbands who ap- 
proached, in human measure, the Pauline ideal; on the other hand, 
as every reader of this volume knows, there have been in every 
age and clime men as cruel to their wives as human law allowed. 
Some one has said that the lot of woman has been tolerable— 
especially in Christian lands—only because so many fathers and 
husbands have been more considerate than the laws under which 
they lived. 

In the foregoing review of common law we have exposed, in 
a measure, the injustice imposed on womankind by clerics who 
came to the British Isle. They came as heralds of the Gospel— 
reciting with their lips the Golden Rule of Christ, and bearing in 
their hands the infamous Roman law of Patria Potestas. 

Sir Henry Maine says: 


“T do not know how the operation and nature of the Ancient 
Patria Potestas can be brought so vividly before the mind as by 
reflecting on the prerogatives attached to the husband by the pure 
English Common Law, and by recalling the rigorous consistency 
with which the view of a complete legal subjection on the part 
of the wife is carried by it, where it is untouched by equity or 


376 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


statutes, through every department of rights, duties and rem- 
edies” (“Ancient Law,” p. 154). 


Nor was this all. 1135 A.D. a copy of the Justinian pandects 
was discovered at Amalfi, Italy. This was a digest of the civil 
law of the Roman Empire, and incorporated the: Patria Potestas. 
The clergy everywhere in England and on the continent hailed 
this discovery with enthusiasm, and the Roman civil law, with 
slight modification to suit the different countries, was soon in 
vogue all over the west of Europe. According to Blackstone: 
“Tt established in the twelfth century a new Roman Empire over 
most of the States of the continents.” Now’ it was the zeal of 
church prelates that effected this. In England especially it was 
resisted by the common people, but church hierarchs combined 
it with the canon law and established it in the ecclesiastical courts, 
and their influence prevailed to have it taught, as was the canon 
law, in the universities. Nor were the prelates of the Eastern 
church blameless in this matter of degrading woman. The rift 
between the Grzco-Roman and the Greco-Byzantine churches 
occurred, according to some writers, in the ninth century. Kurtz, 
in his history, dates the final schism at 1054 A.D., at which time 
the two branches solemnly excommunicated each the other. Prior 
to this, Eastern and Western hierarchs sat side by side in Ecumeni- 
cal Councils, and formulated canon law for the government of the 
church universal. That law, the joint product of Byzantine and 
Roman prelates, divested woman of the rights and privileges she 
enjoyed in the church during the Apostolic and post-Apostolic 
Ages, and relegated her thenceforth to the background. 


Having submitted these undeniable facts, we ask every fair- 
minded reader to decide for himself, or herself, as to the warrant- 
ableness of the author’s claim that not the Bible, but religious 
hierarchs, have effected the subordination of woman. It was so 
in the heathen world; it was so in the second Jewish Common- 
wealth; and the facts adduced in this volume prove beyond perad- 
venture that it has been so in Christendom. The womanhood of 
the world has just grievance against the religious hierarchs of 
the past. 


CONCLUSION | 377 


Now what is to be said of the state of mind that lay back of all 
this? Were these religious teachers “blind leaders of the blind,” 
or must we seek other explanation? So far as heathen priests 
are concerned, they are outside the purview of this volume. As 
to the Jewish Rabbim, we might offer apology in their behalf, 
on the ground that the Hebrew nation had undergone seventy years’ 
captivity in Babylon, and imbibed heathen ideals. We might do 
this, were it not that our lips are sealed to palliation by the de- 
nunciatory words of our Lord, addressed to these same hierarchs: 
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like 
unto whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear beautiful, but 
inwardly are full of dead men’s bones, and all uncleanness... . 
Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judg- 
ment of hell?” 

But how about the hierarchs of Christendom? The men who sat 
in council and framed laws to degrade woman? Who, through 
their emissaries, the missionaries and delegated clerics, imposed 
the law of Patria Potestas in almost all its main features on the 
womanhood of Christendom for well nigh two thousand years? 
Men who permitted the expurgation of women’s names from 
sacred manuscripts; the transposing and changing of the feminine 
into the masculine; the altering of entire sentences, as in the 
Codex Beza? How about these men? May we extenuate their 
fault ? | 

It is the purpose of the author to be charitable, where charity is 
permissible. Some of these prelates were converts from Judaism, 
and had suffered indoctrination at the lips of the Rabbim. Others 
were converts from heathenism—Greeks and Romans, and wedded 
to their prejudice against woman. 

Making due allowance for all these things, we cannot ignore 
the fact that in the ecclesiastical councils sat the church fathers. 
The writings of some of these are still extant, and in them are 
passages vituperating woman. She was regarded as the source 
of all evil in the world. Not only her own sins, but the sins of 
the race were charged against her. She the temptress, and guile- 
less man her hapless victim. In some ancient paintings, sin is 
represented as a serpent with a woman’s head. Tertullian said 


378 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


of woman: “Thou art the gate of hell”; Jerome: “Women are to 
be shunned by every man who cares for his soul.” Cuthbert taught 
that a woman should not comb her hair, wash her face, nor bathe, 
for, said he: “Women, even when ugly, cause too much sin.” His 
aversion was such that he allowed no woman in his church. After 
his death, no member of the sex was permitted to approach within 
a certain distance of his shrine. Another pious church father, 
ruminating on the words of Jesus—“In My Father’s house are 
many mansions”—soliloquized thus: “This fact entitles one to 
believe, that as room will be plenty, men and women will be 
widely separated in Paradise, as they should be on earth.” 

Many of these church fathers, like the Pharisees who brought 
the adulteress before Jesus, abominated sin—in a woman. 

It could not be expected that prelates holding the sex in such 
estimate could view complacently woman’s activities in the church 
of Jesus Christ. 

But how about their successors—clerics who through the cen- 
turies followed in their footsteps? Who sat in church councils 
and reaffirmed their policy concerning woman? How about bishops 
and archbishops active in State affairs, who gave voice and vote 
in favor of laws to oppress her? How about translators who 
used “divers weights and measures” in rendition of God’s word? 
How about exegetes who tortured Hebrew and Greek syntax to 
make it express their own thought, rather than the mind of sacred 
writers? How about expounders of Sacred Writ, who in pulpit 
and on seminary rostrum “exchanged the truth of God for a lie,” 
and led their auditors astray on this question? How about com- 
mentators whose dissertations lade the shelves of ecclesiastical 
libraries and implant erroneous ideas as to woman’s true place in 
Divine economy? How about these? 

The author refrains from passing judgment. To their own 
Master they stand or fall. The probabilities are that many, if 
not most, of these men were sincere. They premised it the Divine 
will that woman should be in subjection to man, and followed this 
line of argument to its false conclusion. We recall Christ’s words 
to His disciples: “Yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth 
you shall think that he offereth service unto God”; and the words 


CONCLUSION 379 


of the Apostle Paul: “I was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, 
and injurious: howbeit I obtained mercy, because I did it igno- 
rantly in unbelief.” He writes concerning those who “have a zeal 
for God, but not according to knowledge.” It is barely possible 
that some of these men commiserated, even as they crucified, and 
like the ancient Jew each severally thanked God he was not born 
a woman. It is well to remember here the prayer of our Divine 
Lord, even in the agonies of Calvary: “Father, forgive them; for 
they know not what they do.” } 


II: IT HAS WROUGHT INJURY TO THE CHURCH: 
Misinterpretation, mistranslation, and misapplication of Scrip- 
ture passages concerning woman, has wrought incalculable injury 
to the church of Jesus Christ. It immeasurably retarded the 
progress of His kingdom. The Interchurch Movement’s Sur- 
vey showed that in the Protestant church of America the 
ratio of women to men was fifty-nine to forty-one. Almost 
three-fifths of the membership are women. There are enrolled 
in the Sabbath-schools 15,617,000 young people. In _ these 
schools there are 2,000,000 volunteer teachers and officers. It is 
claimed that sixty-seven per cent of these teachers are women. 
Authorities tell us that eighty-three per cent of all additions to 
Protestant churches come from the Sabbath-schools, and only 
seventeen per cent from other sources. Nor is that all. A recent 
writer on this subject says: “Sunday-schools not only furnish the 
largest number of additions to the Church, but also furnish its 
most enduring additions. Of the converts brought into the Church 
through customary revival methods, eighty-seven per cent fall 
away in five years, while forty per cent of those brought into the 
Church through educational activity fall away in five years.” One 
has only to stand outside the church at the hour of dismissal of 
Sabbath-school and note how few of the scholars remain to the 
preaching service, to awaken to the fact that the religious instruc- 
tion of youth rests very largely in the hands of womanhood. 
Speaking in general terms, the sermon does not appeal to the 
young. The sparsity of such in the congregation is a matter that 


380 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


demands serious consideration on the part of all who are in- 
terested in the affairs of Christ’s kingdom. 

There are several million enrolled in the young people’s so- 
cieties of the various denominations, and the proportion of fe- 
males to males is two to one. It is safe to say that four-fifths 
of the superintendents of Junior work are women. It is a 
rare thing to find a man active in this line. 

In tabulating woman’s accomplishments in the church of Jesus 
Christ today, we must not overlook the splendid achievements 
of Home and Foreign Missionary Societies. It is estimated that, 
including the wives of missionaries, forty per cent of the working 
force in the foreign field are women. We must also appraise 
the services of deaconesses, women evangelists, assistant pastors 
and church visitors. Our inventory would be incomplete were 
we to overlook the fact that a number of the smaller denomina- 
tions have removed the ban against the ordination of women, and 
in the United States census three hundred of the sex are listed 
as clergymen. 

Now we ask the reader to reckon in his mind what it would mean 
to the church of Jesus Christ today to dispense with the minis- 
tries of woman. To silence her voice in the choirs? To forbid 
her testimonies in the prayer-meetings? Her teaching in the Sab- 
bath-schools? Her superintending Junior organizations and con- 
ducting young peoples’ meetings? Her assisting in evangelistic 
services? Her functioning in Home and Foreign Missionary 
Societies? Her serving as Assistant Pastor, deaconess, or church 
visitor? What would it mean to the church of today to disband 
the entire working force of women, and send them back to the 
privacy of domestic life, or divert their energies into other chan- 
nels? 

What it would mean to the church of today, it meant to the 
church for a period of fifteen hundred years, while woman sat 
apart in the house of the Lord, her lips sealed, her feet bound, her 
hands tied—penalized for Eve’s transgression. 

Some years ago Francis Murphy conducted his temperance cam- 
paign in the city of Pittsburgh. The services were held in the 
Methodist Protestant Church on Fifth Avenue. Afternoon and 


CONCLUSION 381 


night the auditorium was thronged. At the height of interest Mr. 
Murphy invited Miss Frances E. Willard to come to Pittsburgh 
to assist in the campaign. One afternoon, as she sat on the plat- 
form, Mr. Murphy requested her to offer prayer. She was about 
to do so, when the pastor arose and forbade it. No woman could 
offer audible prayer in a church where he was in charge. It is 
said that on this occasion Miss Willard bowed her head and 
wept. Day after day and night after night, for weeks, men, 
the dregs of society—drunkards and debauchees—were brought 
into the meetings. No doubt but numbers in that motley throng 
were fit subjects for segregation. They made their way down 
the aisle, some of them so much under the influence of liquor 
as to require assistance. On the table before the pulpit lay the 
pledge cards. These were presented and signed. Hundreds of 
these same cards were later displayed in the windows of saloons, 
where they were exchanged for drink. 

After the formality of signing, as many of the signees as could 
be induced to do so were led to the platform to rehearse the story 
of their downfall. The pastor received them—men in all stages 
of physical, mental and moral degradation—with extended hand 
and beaming countenance. Mr. Murphy, himself an ex-saloon- 
keeper, and, as he often stated in his addresses, a pardoned crim- 
inal, stood by their side as they related their experiences. These 
men, at times, seemed to vie with each other in depicting how low 
they had fallen, and the one who could tell the most lurid tale 
was the one most lionized. While this was going on, the white- 
souled Frances Willard sat apart—forbidden to open her lips in 
prayer—guilty of the one unpardonable sin within the walls of 
that church—that of being born a woman. 

On one occasion a minister entered his church and found a 
small company of women assembled to discuss some phase of 
Christian service. The leader requested one of the number to lead 
in prayer. The minster raised his hand in protest, exclaiming— 
“Wait!” and hastened from the room. The author was present 
on another occasion when a professor remarked to his class of 
young theologues—“A woman sacrifices her modesty when she ' 
offers prayer in public.” 


382 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


Not only did the clergy disallow the activities of woman within 
the church, but also disapproved of her public participation in re- 
ligious affairs outside. A man so pious as the Rev. Samuel Wes- 
ley, father of John and Charles Wesley, administered reproof to 
his wife, because during his absence from home she assembled 
the family servants and a few neighbors, and read, and com- 
mented on God’s word. This attitude of the clergy, during a 
period of fifteen hundred years, paralyzed the energies of one- 
half the working force in Christ’s kingdom. 

It may be pointed out that during the Medieval Age there were 
not the same opportunities for service on the part of women, even 
if the clergy had been favorably disposed. There were no Sab- 
bath-schools nor young people’s societies, nor other lines of 
Christian service that at the present time especially engage the 
attention of women. That is true, and such would, in large meas- 
ure, be the case today if Christian women would lay aside their 
tasks. If the sixty-seven per cent of women teachers would 
withdraw from the Sabbath-schools, the system would be disor- 
ganized. The same results would follow in young people’s so- 
cieties—two-thirds of the membership being women. If the forty 
per cent of women missionaries should abandon the foreign field, 
Mission Boards would be distraught over the situation. 

The probabilities are that if the path of Christian womanhood 
had not been blocked, the forenamed agencies would have been 
in operation centuries before they were realized. She would not 
have been, for fifteen hundred years, unmindful of the young. 

It is chimerical to affirm that if women vacated their tasks in the 
church today, they would be replaced by men, and the affairs of 
the kingdom would function as before, or even better. The thought 
is fantasy. Right here we confront a stern fact. It is this: 
Women never supplanted men im the, activities of the church. 
They were accepted because men were unavailable. If the latter 
had responded to the call, women would not have been invested 
with the right to serve. There was no other resource. Neces- 
sity, and not “a willing mind,” compelled the prelates to unbar the 
door. 

A like situation confronts the church today regarding the ordi- 


CONCLUSION 383 


nation of women to the Gospel ministry. The creed of hierarchs 
on this question is imperiled by the fact that a sufficient number ’ 
of men are not available to supply the pulpits. In every denomina- 
tion there is a dearth of ministers, and theological seminaries re- 
port a reduction in the number of young men preparing to preach 
the Gospel. In the South and Southwest sections of the United 
States there are 5,600 vacant pulpits. The following figures are 
taken from the “Interchurch Survey,” and apply to the United 
States: 


“In one denomination 3,388 congregations did not have regular 
pastoral care. In another there were 994 fewer ministers than in 
1914. In the New England section, of one denomination, thirty- 
five per cent of the congregations were without regular ministers 
in 1915. One denomination reports: ‘2,000 churches pastorless 
and shepherdless ?’ 

“In a denomination having 963 congregations only 627 have 
settled pastors. Another reports a net gain in three years of 
25,680 members, but only thirty-four ministers. 

“Another denomination needs a thousand ministers a year, to 
fill the gaps, but had in 1919 less than 600. 

“In Ig1I there was a total decrease of 178 theological students 
as compared with 1910; in 1913 there were twenty per cent less 
than in 1912. 

“These losses occurred during a period marked by a large in- 
crease in the number of church members and of college students; 
by extensive evangelistic campaigns; by special religious work in 
colleges; and by Student Volunteer Movement. 

“In one denomination 1,624 more unordained ‘supply preachers’ 
were used in 1918 than in 1898. In another, out of 986 ministers, 
only 476 gave their full time to ministerial work.” 


Dr. Frederick Lynch, writing in “The Christian Work,” says: 


“The English religious press is just now full of letters regard- 
ing the serious shortage in candidates for the ministry. The situa- 
tion seems quite desperate. Since the war, the classes in theologi- 
cal seminaries have been only one-half or one-third the size of the 
classes of pre-war days. In the Anglican communion, the prob- 
lem is already assuming serious condition, as there are hundreds 


384. THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


of churches without pastors, and the situation grows more and 
more alarming.” 


The various denominations have sent out S. O. S. calls, imploring 
young men to fill the vacant ranks, but the lack of response is 
disconcerting. The need is compelling some, even of the stronger 
denominations, to consider the advisability of ordaining women. 

Some writers on this subject attribute the shortage of ministers 
to inadequate salaries, and charge the laity with dereliction in this 
matter; the author would place the blame elsewhere. It is written 
in Sacred Writ: 


“And it shall be in the last days, saith God, 
I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all flesh; 
And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” 


“The powers that be” in the church have answered—our sons 
shall prophesy—and have barred the doors to daughters. This 
setting at naught the word of God by their traditions accounts 
for the present dearth of ministers. 

It is an astounding fact that the church of Jesus Christ marches 
in the rear of every other profession in according full recognition 
to women. More astounding still that, while down through the 
centuries the allied forces of evil have offered every inducement 
to woman to cast her lot among them, the magnates of the church 
have waved her back, and repulsed her efforts to serve the cause 
of righteousness. 

A lecturer of the National Woman’s Christian Temperance 
Union was attending a convention. She was a woman of ability— 
so much so that her own denomination made her an exception 
and licensed her to preach the Gospel. On this occasion she was 
invited to occupy the pulpit of a church, the pastor of which was 
absent. As she entered the vestibule, she was confronted by a stern 
individual, and the following conversation ensued: 

“Madam, do you believe the Bible?” 

“T certainly do,” she replied. 

“Do you accept it as the inspired word of God?” 

“T do,’ was her answer. 


CONCLUSION 385 


“Then how,” said her interrogator, “do you dare to go into that 
pulpit this morning and preach to this congregation?” 

It was about time for the services to begin. Realizing this, she 
said to her interlocutor: “Sir, there is not time for controversy, 
but I infer from your remarks that you are opposed to women 
preaching.” 

“T most certainly am!” he replied with emphasis. 

So is the devil!’ she responded, and passed to the pulpit. 

Now that woman uttered a volume of truth in that single sen- 
tence. Satan and his entire constituency have, down through the 
centuries, been averse to woman preaching. They have recognized, 
as the church has not, her great power for good or for evil. 

Frances E. Willard believed herself called to the ministry of 
God’s word. In her book, “Woman in the Pulpit,’ she gives this 
testimony. ‘There is pathos in her words: 


“Even my dear old mother-church, the Methodist, did not call 
women to her altars. I was too timid to go without a call; and 
so it came about that while my unconstrained preference would 
long ago have led me to the pastorate, I have failed of it, and am 
perhaps writing out, all the more earnestly for this reason, thoughts 
long familiar to my mind. 

“Let me, as a loyal daughter of the church, urge upon younger 
women who feel the call, as I once did, to preach the unsearchable 
riches of Christ, their duty to seek admission to the doors that 
would hardly close against them now in any theological seminary 

. and let me pleadingly beseech all Christian people who grieve 
over the world’s great heartache, to encourage every true and 
capable woman, whose heart God has touched, in her wistful pur- 
pose of entering upon that blessed Gospel ministry, through which 
her strong yet gentle words and work may help to heal that 
heartache, and to comfort the sinful and sad ‘as one whom his 
mother comforteth,’ ” 


Man closed the door of the ministry to Frances E. Willard, but 
God opened to her the world, and she went forth a flaming evangel 
of truth. Millions waited on her ministry and she tied the white 
ribbon round the globe. 

Anna Howard Shaw sought ordination at the altar of her 


386 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


church, the Methodist Episcopal, and was denied. She applied to 
the New York Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church 
and was accepted. She was assigned to a village pastorate and 
served acceptably for seven years, then stepped outside her nar- 
row bounds to champion a world reform, and thrilled two conti- 
nents with her eloquence. 

The Church of England afforded no room for the talent and 
energy of Catherine Booth, “The Mother of the Salvation Army,” 
so she took her stand by the side of her husband, William Booth, 
in the work of evangelizing the degraded classes in London. She 
became a preacher and turned many to righteousness. She was 
the mother of eight children, seven of whom became preachers. 
One of these, her eldest daughter, Catherine Booth Clibborn, has 
a family of five sons and five daughters, and eight of these are 
preachers. The Salvation Army was organized in 1861 and in the 
brief period that has elapsed since then has assumed world pro- 
portions. Humanly speaking, this would be impossible had the 
Salvation Army, like the church, failed to recognize the equality 
of the sexes. 

The church had no room for the ministries of Maud Ballington 
Booth, so she wended her way to jails and penitentiaries, with 
God’s word in her hand, and His love in her heart, and today an 
army inside prison walls, and thousands who have served their 
term and been released revere her as “The Little Mother.” 

Clara Barton found scant encouragement for her God appointed 
task within the courts of His sanctuary, so stepped outside and 
founded the ever alert, ever prepared organization—The American 
Red Cross—an organization that may be characterized as Chris- 
tianity in action. 

We might extend this list indefinitely. We might add the name 
of Miss Robart of London, who, in 1839, organized the Young 
Woman’s Christian Association; Elizabeth Fry, whose consecrated 
efforts tamed “the savages of Newgate prison”; Florence Nightin- 
gale, “The Angel of the Crimea,” who was in deed and truth, the 
forerunner of the Red Cross; Anna Wittenmyer, whose great 
work in the Christian Commission during the Civil War, was the 
means of saving thousands of lives and the restoring of invalided 


eee 


CONCLUSION | 387 


soldiers to health and usefulness. She it was who conceived and 
established a “Home” for soldiers’ orphans. All others are 
the outgrowth of her initiative. “Mother Stewart”—a born leader 
—who mobilized the womanhood of this country against the drink 
trade and led them forth in the great crusade of 1873-74; Mattie 
McClellan Brown, Right Worthy Vice Templar of the Interna- 
tional Order of Good Templars, who would gladly have exchanged 
the platform for the pulpit, if the barriers had been removed, but 
No! Ecclesiastics forbade. The International Order of Good 
Templars saw its opportunity, and this gifted woman laid her 
eloquence and her fine executive ability on an altar outside the 
church of Jesus Christ: Katharine Bushnell, who was _ instru- 
mental in breaking down the system of legalized vice in India, and 
exposing “the hidden things of darkness” in the opium trade of 
India and China; Anna Gordon, who presides over a constituency 
which reaches “from sea to sea and from shore to shore”; Carrie 
Chapman Catt, whose name appears in almost every published 
list of the “greatest women of America”; Jane Addams, the 
Shepherdess of the Hull House Settlement; and a host of others 
whose names might well be inscribed high on the scroll of the 
world’s benefactors. 

The church afforded these women of ten talents no tasks com- 
mensurate with their ability, so they lifted their eyes and looked 
on the fields outside, and lo! they were “white already unto the 
harvest,’ and the laborers few. In the need, they read God’s call 
to the larger service. The church lost, but the world gained 
when they responded: “Here am I: send me.” Who can charge 
them with dereliction? 

A new term has been coined by religious writers in these lat- 
ter days—that of “detached service’”—meaning Christian and hu- 
manitarian effort outside the pale of the church. The Woman’s 
Christian Temperance Union; Salvation Army; Volunteers of 
America; Young Women’s Christian Association and American 
Red Cross, all belong in this category. 

It is a notable fact that three of the organizations above named 
were founded by women, and in the establishment of the other 
two, the wife was an equal participant with her husband. This 


388 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


“detached service” might have been performed within, instead 
of apart from, the church, if prelates had read aright the Pauline 
declaration: “There can be no male and female: for ye all are one 
in Christ Jesus.” 

A bishop said recently: “The brainy women members of our 
churches are going more and more into club work, and more and 
more into politics, while they should be devoting themselves to 
the church.” Commenting on this plaint of the bishop, Welthy 
Housinger says: 


“This good bishop cannot see that the time has long since passed 
when the highly trained women, who are leaving our colleges, are 
willing to take up any work which does not enable them to see 
the possibility in the future of sharing in the administration of 
that work. ... I do know that when a young woman of our 
church leaves college halls today, she has an intelligent idea of 
every vocation, from aviation to brokerage, and may enter every 
one except the ministry. She may become a policeman or a judge; 
she may be a mayor or a senator, but she may not be ordained 
as a minister of the Gospel of Christ. So the young women of 
trained intellect and talent, as they come out to take their share 
in the world’s work, specialize, in increasing numbers, in law, 
and not a few have become Judges. (One is now the Assistant 
Attorney General of the United States.) They specialize in jour- 
nalism and become editors; they specialize in education and be- 
come college presidents, but they may not, in the name of the 
Father, receive a child into the church nor administer the sacrament 
to the dying.” 


If the bishop here spoken of desires to enlist the “brainy women 
members of the churches,’ he must advocate for them larger tasks 
than that of quilting and serving tables. God never entrusted man 
or woman with ten talents, or even five, and charged the recipient 
to trade with one, and to hide the others in a napkin. Tasks can- 
not be assigned the women of today after the measurements of the 
Church at Corinth nineteen hundred years ago. The types of 
womanhood are different and this difference must be reckoned 
with. If the authorities of the church persist in pouring new wine 


ee 


CONCLUSION 389 


into old wineskins, the skins will burst and the wine will be 
spilled. 

Apprehension has been expressed in some quarters that if women 
are allowed larger scope, the church will become “feminized.” We 
remind these foreboders that for fifteen hundred years the church 
was masculinized, and while, during that period, it built up a 
powerful hierarchal system, its spiritual life was at lowest ebb. 
So long as we follow the Divine plan, the cause of God will not be 
disturbed, and the Divine plan is that the daughters, as well as 
the sons, “shall prophesy.” 

The editor of the “Interchurch Survey Volume” (American) 
sums up the situation in these timely words: 


“With the development of women’s movements, social, philan- 
thropic and political, it may yet develop that the men inside the 
church will be as much disturbed about the women who are out- 
side the church as the women are today disturbed about the men. 
City women will undoubtedly soon become a serious problem for 
the churches. The way must be opened for the fuller participa- 
tion of women in the control of churches and denominational 
boards. They must be permitted to minister on an equality with 


9 


men. 


III: RACE IMPAIRMENT: 

A third injury resultant on the misconceptions and misapplica- 
tions of the teachings of Sacred Writ concerning woman is race 
impairment. The degradation of one sex unavoidably effects the 
degradation of the other also. The race is one, but of two com- 
ponent parts, and to wound the half is to afflict the whole. 
“Whether one member suffereth, all the members suffer with it.” 
A writer on this subject says: “There is no man’s cause that is not 
woman’s, and no woman’s cause that is not man’s. . . . The fact 
is that men and women must rise or sink together.” 

The breeders of blooded stock are as careful in the selection of 
the dam as in the selection of the sire. Mankind has adopted 
a wholly different policy in its treatment of human procreation. 
They have acted on the assumption that the physical, mental and 
moral condition of the mother was not consequential to the welfare 


390 THE BIBLE STATUS OF WOMAN 


of her offspring. The vigor of the progeny was derivative from 
the sire. The science of eugenics has revealed the fallacy of such 
teaching. The maternal influence is as great, and along physical 
lines even greater than the paternal. A woman stunted physically, 
mentally and morally, cannot engender the highest type of off- 
spring, and when man, by unjust laws and customs, insisted on 
dwarfing womankind, physically, mentally and spiritually, he im- 
peded the progress of the race. We submit the following well- 
attested case as illustrative of the strong prenatal influence of 
the mother: 

A young man by the name of Kallikak, of good ancestry, lived 
in illicit relation with a feeble-minded girl. She gave birth to 
several children—all like their mother, subnormal. Later this 
young man wedded an intelligent young woman. The offspring of 
this union were of wholly different mental type—capable and 
alert. Dr. H. H. Goddard, in the interest of eugenics, traced 
the descendants of these two women through several generations, 
and reported as follows: Of the offspring of the first mother, 
222 were feeble-minded; of the second, 496 were normal, of good 
character, and persons whose business ability added to the wealth 
and well-being of society. 

Here was a clear case where the mother, rather than the father, 
determined the mentality of the offspring. 


In closing this discussion, the author desires to pay tribute to 
the noble men who by voice and pen, in halls of legislation, and 
in councils of the church, have championed the cause of woman- 
kind. Their name is legion and their number has increased with 
the unfolding of the years. Often in the past, the pioneers of 
this reform were compelled to stand apart and be pelted by their 
fellowmen; today they are acclaimed as heralds of a renaissance. 
They were a revival and “survival of the fittest”; in themselves 
a prophecy of the juster manhood of the future. Such men 
have merited the wealth of a mother’s love; the full measure 
of a wife’s devotion, and the unstinted gratitude of woman- 
kind. 

The welfare of the race demands the equalization of the sexes. 


CONCLUSION 391 


State and church leaders who ignore the rising tide of public 
opinion on this question, and ruthlessly seat themselves astride 
the safety-valve of progress, must arouse to the peril of such ad- 
venture, or find their place in the rank of discards. Sooner or 
later the Golden Rule of Christ will usher in the Golden Age 
of humankind. 


WANTED—WOMEN 


“Good women are God’s sentinels: in the darkest of earth’s night, 

They hold with stout hearts, silently, life’s outpost toward the 
light ; 

And at God Almighty’s roll-call, ’mong the hosts that answer 
‘Here!’ 

The voices of good women sound strong and sweet and clear. 


“Good women are brave soldiers; in the thickest of the fight, 
They stand with stout hearts, patiently, embattled for the right; 
And though no blare of trumpet or roll of drum is heard, 
Good women the world over, are the army of the Lord. 


“Good women save the nation, though they bear no sword or gun, 
Their panoply is righteousness, their will with God’s is one; 
Each in her single person revealing God on earth, 

Knowing that so, and only so, is any life of worth. 


“Don’t talk of woman’s weakness! I tell you at this hour 

The weight of this world’s future depends upon their power ; 

And down the track of ages, as Time’s flood-tides are told, 

The level of their height is marked by the place that women 
hold.” 


APPENDIX A 


PROBABILITY ABOUT THE ADDRESS AND AUTHOR OF THE EPISTLE 
TO THE HEBREWS. 


By Von A. Harnack, of Berlin. 


Published in the Zeitschrift Fiir Die Neutestamentliche Wissen- 
schaft, 1900. (Translated by Mrs. Emma Runge Peter, of 
Bellevue, Pennsylvania, U. S. A.) 


The last detailed examination of the composition of the Epistle to 
the Hebrews (Zahn, Einleitung in d.N.T. 1899 2Bd.110-158) has 
reached a definite decision in reference to the recipients of the letter; 
in reference to the author, however, it ends with the rather hopeless 


words of Origen: Tic 886 yoavas thy éxtotoAny td wey aAnOes Oedc 


oldcy. That definite decision is, in my opinion, so convincingly ex- 
plained that doubts existing formerly, also shared by me, cannot easily 
arise any more. Zahn has proven by an extremely careful exegesis 
that the recipients of the letter form a smaller circle (“throughout 
equally placed and equally minded”) of old Christians within a 
larger—we might say metropolitan—congregation (a house-congrega- 
tion, beside which there were one or several others like it in the 
same town), and that this congregation can hardly be any other but 
the Roman. This result explains, as he correctly saw, the absence of 
an address;1 its disappearance would remain a puzzle if the letter 
had been directed to a church in its totality or to a circle of such.? 
If the letter was destined for a smaller group, it is more or less com- 
prehensible that tradition has not preserved the names, no matter 
whether the author annotated them, or indicated the recipients orally 
to the bearer of the letter. 


1Justly Zahn declares it to be impossible that the author himself headed 
the letter xed¢ ‘KGoatoucg although it is found in the tradition of Paul and 
Barnabas; it originated from a redactor who added this letter to others. 
Zahn’s refusal of the address is indeed surprising, because his idea about 
the members of the circle to whom the letter was addressed is apt to favor 
the address. 

2 This supposition is also in every other respect entirely unfeasible. 


APPENDIX 393 


However impressive the arguments are by which Zahn determined 
the address of the Epistle, just as unconvincing are his proofs for 
all the recipients being native Jews. I can only see in it the sunset-glow 
of the opinion—most fortunately contested by Zahn himself—that the 
Epistle cautions against return to Judaism, indeed was written for 
this very purpose. “There is not the slightest indication of a return, 
or even possible return, of the readers to participation in Jewish cult 
in the entire Epistle to the Hebrews” (p. 136). “The author is 
writing to Christians who, since their conversion, had nothing to do 
with Jewish sacrificial cult” (p. 137). ‘The author does not at all 
refer to the question in which manner the combining of Christian 
creed with lawful mode of living should be judged” (p. 136). “The 
practical exhortations (they are entirely of moral nature, and do not 
touch upon the question of nationality at all) do not appear as suffixed 
applications, but as an expression of the main purpose, in the service 
of which are the most explicit and artistic arguments” (p. 124). 

After these concessions by which Zahn agrees with the opinions of 
Jiilicher, Von Loden and myself, it seems almost unimportant how 
you answer the question of the addressees’ nationality, as it has 
nothing to do with the purpose of the letter to strengthen Christians, 
who becoming faint and half-hearted, are in danger of losing every- 
thing through this very faint and half-heartedness. But Zahn, 
recognizing this, confuses the end in view, and contradicts himself 
by saying in reference to Ch. 13:13 (p. 130) the request of “moving 
without the camp” could be addressed to native Jews only, for their 
having been “within” from the beginning is presupposed. If the 
exhortation of the author really culminates in the demand “to re- 
nounce the communion of Jews that cast out Jesus,” then all the 
exegetes, contested by Zahn, are right, who find in every chapter of 
the letter the exhortation not to relapse into semi-Jewish belief and 
Jewish actions. Still more contradictory it is when Zahn, on p. 145, 
asserts that the sad condition of the readers is to be explained through 
Jewish-Christian bitterness (“the Jewish majority of Roman Christians 
in 584 were devoted to their people, and grieved that the majority of 


3 This assertion is so much more striking since Zahn himself admits this 
to be a figurative expression corresponding to the symbolic of the entire 
letter. Yet it might not have been directed to Gentile-Christians! Especially 
daring it is, moreover, when Zahn indicates on p. 153 the expression 
mapeuGoAn to have been chosen in consideration of Jerusalem lying in 
ruins. In the midst of symbolism this realism! 

4 Zahn’s idea that the Roman congregation consisted quite predominantly 


394 APPENDIX 


Jews who did not believe in the Gospel, were just as much repressed 
in Christendom as they lost hold on national and political matters; they 
were even open to many a Jewish protest against the Gospel. The 
frame of mind which Paul opposes in the entire Epistle to the Romans, 
especially in Ch. 9:1-11, 12, might rise to the bitterness of heart which 
the Epistle to the Hebrews is set against”). Leaving it out of the 
question that something else but “bitterness” is noticed in the Epistle 
to the Hebrews—how is it to be explained that nowhere in the letter 
this “Judaism” is entered upon, if the entire lamentable condition of 
the addressees is the consequence of their “Judaism”? Or are the 
so-called theoretical paragraphs to be understood in this sense? But 
it is Zahn himself who turns against this in very decided expressions! 

To few it will seem plausible what he believes to have ascertained 
by positive considerations in reference to the Jewish descent of the 
addressees, leaving Ch. 13:13 out of the question. He does not wish 
to refer to the title cod¢ ‘EGeatoug but Gentile-Christians could not 
be written to that God had spoken to “us” through the Son; further- 
more, the letter presupposes readers accustomed to measure everything 
that presents itself to them as God’s deed and creation according to 
the Old Testament, especially to the law. Ch. 3:7—4, 11, finally, must 
not be taken generally symbolically, but symbolic-historically, and 
with its forty years referred to the years 30-70 after Christ. And then 
it would be certain that it could be of interest only to born Jews for 
whom the destruction of Jerusalem was the critical catastrophe. Leav- 
ing the inacceptable explanation of Ch. 3:7—4, 11 aside,® all these 
arguments arise from a very arbitrary definition of the scope of Gen- 
tiles’ feeling and thinking. The Heathen by birth, becoming Christian, 
was built on the foundation of the Old Testament. That explains 
everything, t.e., no limits can or may be drawn regarding the devout- 
ness with which he familiarized himself with the Book, and felt the 
contents as his property, his history, and his pedigree. For that very 
reason it is unjust to demand of the Gentile-Christian to remain con- 
stantly conscious of God’s having spoken to the Jews only through 
the Son, and to him through the Apostles. If the Old Testament 
fathers are for the Gentiles “our fathers,” then the “Son” did come 


of born Jews, at the time of the letter to the Romans, is probably the reason 
for his finding only Jewish-Christians in the Epistle to the Hebrews. 

5 Zahn allowed himself to be led to it by the direct introduction of the 
quotation; but how can such a weak foundation uphold such a structure, 
especially as the author in his Old Testamental quotations historizes nowhere 
else, neither under cover nor openly. 


APPENDIX 395 


to all; He is, to be sure, the joint-Creator and Saviour of the world. 
In so sublime a writing as Hebrews 1:1, etc., the “jytv” meaning “we 
Christians altogether,” is just as much in place as the “xécuoc¢” re- 
peated four times in John i:9, 10.6 On page 131 can be read in 
which manner Zahn expounds the positive argument for the Heathen 
origin of the readers (Ch. 6, 1f.). I wish to remark that I should 
not like to draw from it an absolutely sure testimony for this origin. 
What is characteristic for the Epistle to the Hebrews is that the 
difference between Jewish-Christians and Gentile-Christians does not 
exist any more; indeed by no expression or reminiscence are we re- 
minded of it.7, He who mixes with the purpose of the letter and the 
characteristics of the readers anything derived from their alleged 
nationality confuses the entire picture. 

Before I turn to the question of the authorship, I deem it expedient 
to group comprehensively the observations that speak for a definite 
circle (a house-congregation) of Roman Christians. The decision 
concerning authorship is closely dependent on the decision of the 
circle of readers: 

1. The letter was, as far as we know, first in evidence at Rome. 
According to Eusebius it was made use of in the First Epistle of 
Clemens (96 A.D.). 

2. The greeting, Ch. 13:24 (domdGovtat bua of &xd tho “ItaAtac) 
—the only one contained in the letter—shows the author to be out- 
side Italy, the recipients in Italy. At any rate, this is the nearest 
interpretation. 

3. The designation “tyotuevot,” used thrice (Ch. 13:7, 17, 24) 
for the ruling ones, is to be found in the Roman congregation (see 
the First Epistle of Clemens, and xponyovusvor in Hermas). 

4. The confident hope that God would not let the congregation sink 
entirely, is based by the author, Ch. 6:10, upon the efficacious love 
which they showed, and are still showing, and this love does not 
include only the nearest companions but extends far beyond them 
(td Eoyov budv xat h a&yann Fy évedstEacbe cic td Svoua adroy, 
Staxovnoavtes totic aytors® xat  dtaxovotvteg). If every one 


6 To make this argument still stronger, we read, Ch. 2:3: (} owtnela) 
kexhy AaBotoa Aareiobar Ste tod xuplou brd tHyv dxouckyvtwy elc Huds EBeBarwby. 
From these words Ch. 1:2 receives its closer definition. 

7 Also the exhortations in Ch. 13:9 have no reference to it. 

8 ot &ytot= Christians in general. If the author had also thought’ of 
Christians abroad, he would have been obliged to express himself differently. 
That the assertion ot &ytot indicated the Christians of Jerusalem, is not 


396 APPENDIX 


of them shows the same ardor—shown in labor of love—also in 
Christian hope and depth of conviction (v. 11), then everything will 
be well. The efficacious care for the Christians in general is known 
to have been the principal merit of the old Roman congregation (see 
e.g., Dionysius of Corinth in the letter to Soter). 

5. The congregation has not only passed through hard times, gen- 
erally speaking, but also through extremely acute afflictions (Ch. 10:32, 
etc.), due to their being Christians. These afflictions, not of recent 
occurrence, are described in very strong expressions (xoAA} &OAnots 
xabnudtwy, dverdstapotc te xat OAtveoty OeatetCduevor, } aonayr 
coy Unaoydvtwy). They recall the description of the Neronian 
persecution in the first Clement letter. This comparison becomes still 
more perfect if you combine Ch. 13:7 with Ch. 10:32, etc-—a com- 
bination that presents itself in disposition and manner of expression 
in both chapters.1° Hence it follows that “nyotwevor” suffered mar- 
tyrdom in this persecution, and especially such “yyotwevor” as brought 
the message to the congregation.1! The expression does not designate 
them as the first missionaries—a more definite name would probably 
have been chosen in this case—but it does say that the present con- 
gregation is in a way indebted to them for their having become 
Christians. What congregation can be thought of more readily than 
the Roman, having witnessed the Neronian persecution and the 
martyrdom of Peter and Paul? These Apostles were not the founders 
of the Roman congregation, but they might well be designated as 


Hyovpevot Oudy, ottives éAdAnoay buty tov Adyov t00 Bcod, And 
the request utwetobe thy mtotty (adtmy) is again paralleled to 
I Clement 5, where Peter and Paul are extolled as vyevvate 
Unodelypata and broyoauwol. 


provable and the hypothesis that the great Pauline congregation be meant, 
is altogether without support. 


®The guttcévtes (10, 32) does not necessarily mean that they were 
newly converted at that time. 


10 There, as well as here, the author begins with wvnuovebete (or dvautuyte 
oxecfe) ; there as well as here, a complete heroic episode is the point in 
question; there we read, Ov dvabewpotvtes tiv ExBacty ths avacteoghs wtuetOce 
chy wlotty, here, xotvwvol.tdv ots d&vactespougvwy yevnPévtec. Zahn explained 
well why the bloody victims of persecution are not spoken of more dis-. 
tinctly in Ch. 10:32, etc. The point in question is to remember the labor 
of those who endured persecution. It would have been utterly improper 
to emphasize their escape from martyrdom. 

11 The great majority of exegetes acknowledge the fact in Ch. 13 7, 
the martyr’s death of those concerned can only be thought of. 


APPENDIX 397 


6. If the hypothesis of the Roman address has everything in its 
favor !2 according to the arguments 1-5, and no argument against 
it is to be found,!* it is very probable on the other hand that not the 
Roman congregation in general, or any general congregation, was 
the recipients. The negative argument that such an address could 
not easily be lost, was mentioned before. The positive arguments in 
favor of a smaller group are the following: 

(a.) The addressees form a group “throughout equally minded.” 
Their religious and moral ideas are the same; nowhere does the 
author distinguish among them groups, shades, or anything like that. 
But as he, on the other hand, did not write a treatise, but presupposes 
very concrete conditions, it is not easy to think of a congregation, 
least of all of as large and manifold one, as the Roman.1* 

(b.). The exhortation in Ch. 5:12: xal yao égetAovtesg elvae 
Srddoxnahot Ota toy Yodvoyv, maAty yYoctav Eyete TOO Stddoxery Suas 
cannot be addressed to an entire congregation where minors and 
neophytes always are. It can only be meant for a definite group of 
older Christians,> a group whose growth had not shown as much 
progress recently as in the beginning. 


12 Also the general expression ot dxotcavtes (Ch. 2:3) for those to 
whom the author and readers are indebted for their Christianity, is conclu- 
sive. The Roman congregation was not of apostolic origin. 


18 The title «pbc “EGoatouc is incorrect, and causes the same difficulty, no 
matter how the real address is explained. In the manner which I hinted at 
tentatively in my Chronology, I., p. 479, one will never be able to decipher 
it in its origin. It is chosen just as poorly as the title zod¢ ’Egectouc for 
the Pauline circular writing to Asia. The most probable still is (it being 
precarious to suppose an old error-xpbd¢ todc étatpouc would be the nearest) 
that the rich Old Testament contents have led to it. The title “Ad gentes,” 
found in some of the Catholic letters, is best to be compared, as Zahn cor- 
rectly sees. Yet this title is found very rarely. 

14 Tt would lead too far if we were to show by the many exhortations, 
how improbable it is to think of them as meant for an entire large congre- 
gation, and how unpsychological the author would have been had he addressed 
himself to such a one. 

15 Heinrice (Theol. Ltg., 1895, Col: 289) writes: In its strangely didactic 
attitude, the Epistle is somewhat striking—as long as it is judged as a writ- 
ing to a congregation. .. . It demands a closer circle of readers, and this 
is stated by the author himself. To a congregation he could not write: 
“For the time ye ought to be teachers.” Likewise, it is not characteristic 
of a congregation, if he speaks of the readers as such, as have ministered 
and do still minister to the saints (6:10). According to 13:24 he distin- 


guishes them from the ‘*yotyevotr, not all of them belonging to them, 


and from the ytot, the congregational members at large. Do these 
expressions not indicate distinctly a group of evangelists about whose de- 
velopment the author is troubled? Only the final decision seems strange 


898 APPENDIX 


(c.) That a select circle of older Christians is referred to is also 
made evident by the exhortation to call to rememberance “the former 
days,” and their former fyoUwevor already illuminated (Ch. 10:32, 
etc.; 13:7)—their personal experience is supposed in both cases— 
and also by the recognition of their reputation of having performed 
great works of love in olden times (Ch. 6:10). The sentence fol- 
lowing immediately: éxt@uwotuwev 68 exactoy buoy thy adthy 
évdetxyucbat onmoudhy xtA., does not read as if written to a large 
congregation but to a small homogeneous circle. 

(d.) In Ch. 13:17 we read the addressees should obey their 
Hyotwevot. In Ch. 13:24, greetings are sent to all their jyoUwevot, 
and all saints. These words, not called forth by any special context, 
cannot easily (or not at all), be explained in any other way but that 
the addressees form a special circle in the general town-congregation, 
and have their own ‘yovuevot, but also owe obedience to the 
hyolwcvot of the general congregation. The somewhat indistinct 
expression tiy értouvaywyhy éautmy (Ch. 10:25) refers perhaps to 
the special meeting of the select circle (thus Zahn), yet a definite de- 
cision here is impossible. 

(e.) We do know, especially of the Roman congregation, that in 
olden times, house-congregations existed there. If we know it not, 
we could suppose it from the Epistle to the Philippians and other 
documents, even a priort. Indeed we read in Romans 16 of three,16 
namely the house-congregation of Priscilla and Aquila (v. 3-5),17 of 
Asyncritus and companions (v. 14), and of Philologus and com- 
panions (v. 15). To one of these, or to a fourth one—which must 
have been formed before the Neronian persecution—the so-called 
Epistle to the Hebrews is written. Shall we be able to decide to 
which one? This leads us to the question concerning authorship. 

In answering this question, critique has—as formerly in reference 
to the recipients—allowed itself to be guided much too little by the 
astonishing fact that the author’s name was lost. The author calls 
Timothy “our brother,’ ?® and was, as we shall see immediately, a 


here. Evangelists? Very likely only such as were to prepare themselves 
for this calling. But then the whole picture is disturbed. Heinrici pressed 
the dgefhovtec elvat StSdexaAor unsuitably, and took it too literally. 

16 Zahn has proven anew the reasons for separating Ch. 16 from the 
Epistle to the Romans as insufficient. 

17Tt is a pleasing, but not a probable supposition, that all the persons 
named by Paul, vs. 6-13, belong to Prisca’s house-congregation. 

18 We shall see later that the meaning is not only “the Christian brother.” 


APPENDIX 399 


respected teacher in Rome in former times; nevertheless his name is 
lost, so that in order to regain it, guessing was applied in the second 
century. The names of Paul, Clement, and Luke, owe their connec- 
tion with the letter merely to brain-wrecking guess-work. And the 
same is very likely true about the name of Barnabas. In my Chro- 
nology I, p. 478, I explained why one cannot be satisfied with it, and 
further reflection has strengthened me in my doubts. How can the 
loss of Barnabas’ name or its substitution by Paul’s be explained? 1° 
Zahn’s proof for Tertullian’s not rendering an African, and conse- 
quently not a Roman, tradition in calling the letter “Barnabas’ epistula,” 
seems to me not a happy one. Moreover, it remains most probable that 
the letter was known in Africa, and therefore also in Rome by the 
name (about 220), without belonging to the New Testament. Neither 
can it be proven decidedly that Ireneus and Hippolytus knew and 
cited the letter as anonymous. Yet Zahn justly draws the conclusion 
from the fact—since the letter is spoken of as Paul’s and as Barnabas’ 
—that there was in its history (before the end of the second century) 
a period during which it circulated anonymously. Then it is feasible 
that the congregation circulating it—and that was the Roman—sent 
it without the author’s name, possibly because they did not know 
it any longer (yet that is less probable), or because they suppressed 
it intentionally.2° In either case, we must look for a man near 
Paul, and a trusted companion of Timothy, whose name or position 
explains this strange, intentional or unintentional suppression. ‘The 
names of Luke, Clement, Barnabas, or Apollos, do surely not explain it. 

After these preliminary remarks we shall turn to the statements 
the letter offers regarding its author; they are by no means sparse. 
Before we speak about the most important ones, an investigation 
about the use of “we,” “you” and “I,” is needed. Let me tabulate: 
VV elt) Tso 0N2 TEA VE Sees GcOmIA NO Asi=a0 FT, 713, Id4-16> 5115 
0292310) E119) 103 7 sT4tONeOs orl» O8i4,4= 24-202 10, 15,20, 22°24, 
2040; 304 1133, 405812 -1v ay. O25,. 20391 350, Oe 1 3-1 54110, 20, 215/23. 
Oli 4+ b. 12,13) (Chey WgsOnid 5) 4s Fe COLavey 7) 345 11 1;1 123 0 :9-12% 
9425. 20,932-30 +-1253-8) $2425 132273) 740, 10-1G,,21-25... Lt IT 33244 
LAc1On22,023327 

19 Let me refer also to the fact that tradition knows really nothing of 
Barnabas’ sojourn in Rome. The pseudo-Clementine works of fiction, and 
even later concoctions of a similar character, are surely not to be considered. 

20 The characterization of the letter as Barnabas’, in Africa or Rome, 
belongs consequently to a relatively late time. | 

21 Undoubtedly we must read here ‘yoy; the byev would be contrary 
to the author’s style in this connection. 

22 The non-originality of the pou in Ch. 10:34 is generally admitted 


400 APPENDIX 


The more attentively the change of “we’ and “you” is studied, the 
more we admire the author’s stylistic elegance also here. The basis 
of his mode of expression is the communicative “we,” and he keeps 
it up as long as the nature of the arguments permits, and returns to 
it as soon as possible. He even writes (Ch. 4:1): go@yPduey uy 
mote xXataArettougyyns emayyeAtas etocANcty Sox tig €§ budy 
Doteonxévat, Especially characteristic is Ch. 10:24, etc. xatay- 
OMUEY........ BAémete........ huUaotTaveytwWy HUWY Or verse 29: doxstTE.... 
otdaucy yao, and further 32-39, where a long paragraph, written in 
the second person, ends thus: fuctc 8&8 otx éousy OrootoAe. 
In the thirteenth chapter finally let us observe tua (v. 6) after 
éertkavOdvecbe and utuynoxeobe, and how the author, vs. 10-15, and 
then in the expressions xUetov nudy (v. 20) év HUty (Vv. 21) again 
and again returns to “we.” This communicative “we” is more than 
a stylistic form; it teaches unequivocally that the author includes 
himself with his readers, not generally as a Christian with Christians, 
but he counts himself belonging to their very group; their weal and 
woe are his; he feels as one of their members, and he knows himself 
to be one. Therefore he must have lived and labored among them for 
some time. Some special places will prove abundantly that we are 
not deceiving ourselves in this opinion. 

The author speaks also as a teacher and guide who—by virtue of 
his intimate knowledge of his readers’ past and present, and by the 
position he once filled among them, a position not yet expired—is 
justified in teaching, praising or blaming them, in remonstrating with 
them most earnestly. In such cases he uses the second person. When 
using it for the first time, he adds the solemn and cordial ddeAgot 
gytot and repeats adeAgot once more (Ch. 3:1, 12). In 4:1; 
5i:1I, 12; 6:9-12; 10:25, 29, 32-36, “you” could not be avoided very 
well, as can easily be seen. ‘These are all the places in which it 
occurs up to Ch. 12:3. It becomes different in the two concluding 
Chs. 12:3; 13:25. Because the language becomes more impressive, and 
the admonition briefer, “you” of the authorized teacher is the rule. 
The authorized teacher—for the “entire style of the letter indicates the 
author’s being accustomed to teaching, and as teacher is enjoying 
a certain influence, not only among other Christians but also among 
the readers.” The masterly style in pneumatic exegetics, the clear- 


ene the variant is hardly older than the belief in Paul’s authorship of the 
pistie. 


APPENDIX 401 


ness of expositions, the excellency and skill in exegetic and -admoni- 
tory style prove that some one is writing who has had practice in 
theological delivery. 

However, the “we” which dominates the arguments, demands an 
even closer consideration. Not everywhere—but only in the majority 
of cases—does it mean “I and you readers.” In a few cases (see 
é.g., I, 2) it means “we Christians’—it is unnecessary to eliminate 
these—in other cases, however, neither this one nor the communicative 
interpretation is in place. If I see correctly, the verses 2:5; 4:13; 
5:11; 6:1-3; 9:11; 13:18, 23 are involved. To these the four verses 
in which the author uses “I”: 11:32; 13:19, 22, 23 must be added. 

From these fourteen parts, we shall exclude the three dubious, 
moreover, subordinate ones; for meet Hg Aawdodwev (2:5), the modc 
Ov HutydAdyos (4:13) and rept 05 mods Hutv 6 Adyoso (5:11) can 
very well be understood communicatively, even if the similar xat tt 
ete Aéyw; éxtAciver we yao Stnyobwevoy 6 yodvocg (11:32) makes us 
think of a literary plural form.?8 But an author who in using the 
communicative plural goes so far as to write go@yOdusy un cote 
Soxy tic Sudy Soteonxévar may have thought of these phrases as 
communicative. The acceptance of a literary plural is therefore un- 
necessary. The “we” in parts 5:11—6:11 and 13:18, 23 remains to 
be explained. We must begin with 13:18. In this place, “we” can- 
not be communicative, neither can it be literary plural form, for the 
words “Pray for us, for we trust we have a good conscience, in all 
things willing to live honestly,’ are followed immediately by: “But 
I beseech you the rather to do this, that I may be restored to you 
the sooner.” Thus the author discriminates between “we” and “I.” 
The argument that “tjy@v” is still influenced by the preceding plural 
(of HyoUwevor buoy) (v. 17), and is a slight incorrectness eliminated 
by the author in verse 19, is unfeasible. The verses 17 and 18 are 
indeed very closely connected; but if it is still conceivable that he, 
on account of combining those jyotuevot with his own person, wrote 
Teel HUY instead of npocetyeobe wept guob, it is inconceivable, 
nevertheless, that he wrote wetO6ucba yao Ott xadty cuvetdnoty éxouey, 
and in doing so, also thought of those ‘yovusvor distant to him 
(thus Von Soden). Much more can we agree with Weiss that the 
other persons—those near the author—are included in the plural. 


23 Without using a pronoun, the author writes in 9:5:nepet dv odx getty voy 
A€yety xat& uéooc. 


402 APPENDIX 


How many they were cannot be deciphered. Yet there cannot be 
many, as they are in the same relationship to the readers as the 
author, and they must have known at once who was meant. By the 
words: teetscotépwsg 8& Tapaxark® xtA., the author becomes prom- 
inent in their midst. 

If it is certain that “we” in verse 18 is neither a communicative nor 
literary plural, then it is very probable that also in verse 23 a real 
plural of authors is to be thought of.24 After the author wrote in 
verse 22: “And I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of exhorta- 
tion: for I have written a letter unto you in a few words,” he con- 
tinues (v. 23): “Know ye that our brother Timothy is set at liberty: 
with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you. Salute all them that 


have the rule over you,” etc. Why does the author not write tv 
a&secdooyv tiyd0eov, if he wanted to give Timothy merely an epitheton 
ornan??5 And that he wanted to designate him as his and the 
readers’ brother in a restricted sense is not very likely. Timothy was 
undoubtedly a jyotuevoc. Hyotuecvotr are, to be sure,  ddeAgot, 
but not ddcAgot judy, for common Christians. Add to this the 
author’s changing from jwseig to éyw, exactly as in verses 18, 19. 
Therefore it must be acknowledged that the author speaks also here 
in the name of a group of few persons who, like himself, call Timothy 
their colleague, 7. e., call themselves his equal. There must be some- 
thing peculiar about this “group” if the author could further pass 
from “we” to “I” twice, and if he in so intimate and so solemn a 
declaration, as given in verse 18, simply was allowed to speak in 
their name. 

While “TI,” aside from the places spoken of before, occurs yet 11:32 
—in an indifferent sentence—a “we” not communicative is found 
in 6:1-3; 9:11. The noncommunicative character is quite distinct 
in verses 9, 11 (renetoueba?® 58 rept Sudv ta xpetocova nal éyd- 


24 As far as I know, that has always been overlooked. 

25 It is easily understood why so many excellent exegetes do not read 
joy. They did not understand the reference (to the senders only), and 
necessarily it was for them a stumbling-block. Let us compare Paul’s 
manner of speech. He writes xobaptog 6 &3eAn6¢ (Rom. 16:23), Dwabévng 8 48. 
(I Cor. 1:1),’AnxoAAew to5 &S. (I Cor. 16:12), Tryd0eoc, 6&3. (II Cor. 1:1; 
Philem. I; Col. 1:1). Tuytxds & dyanntds 4&3. (Col. 4:7). But when 
he adds judy, it is never a literary plural, or referring communicatively to 
the readers, but designates the brother as a brother of Paul and his 
co-workers. See I Thes. 3:2; II Cor. 8:22, 23; compare further the 


&seAp6g pou in II Cor. 2:13; Phil. 2:25. 


APPENDIX 403 


Leva GUTHOLAG, ct xat OUTWS AaAOUME.... EttOumodmey 38 Exaotoy budy 
chy auchy évdetxyvucbat croudny). Then it is surely proper to look 
upon the “we” at the beginning of this chapter also thus, and not 
communicatively (gcommevOa........ motnowwev). Ch. 6:1 and the fol- 
lowing is to be paraphrased with the Greek expounders and Luther: 
“Therefore we will give up the instruction in Christian rudiments and 
proceed to perfection 27) ..., and this we shall do if God wills it.” 
This is also shown by the inserted, the author speaking of funda- 
mentals and instruction, 7.¢., using expressions prohibiting the com- 
municative explanation of “we.” But if “we” is not communicative 
here, we can see in it only, either the real plural of the senders, or 
the author’s literary plural. Since we have been shown in Ch. 13 
that a “group” is in back of the letter, and since furthermore no literary 
plural occurs anywhere else, and finally since it is improbable that 
the author who uses the communicative plural so constantly (and 
next to it the literary singular), should ever use the literary plural, 
we shall have to recognize a real plural of the senders in the plural 
of the first person, Ch. 6:1-11. Consequently there are two or more 
in whose name the author speaks; they, as well as he, are to the 
readers, teachers who laid the foundation—or helped to lay it—of 
their Christianity. They are confident that their Christianity will 
finally assert itself; they praise their labor of love, and they express 
the vivid desire that every one of them may show the same ardor 


Teds THY TANPODOPLAY THS EAnisoS Hoyt téAOUG. 


A few verses remain to be examined by means of which we 
shall become more closely acquainted with the author. In Ch. 2:3 we 
read: nic husic éxqeuSducba tHhAtxadtyns aucrhoavtes owtnelas, tts 
choyty AaBotoaw Aahetobar St& to xuptou bnd TOY axoucdytwy els 
Hua éBeGarw0y; consequently the readers as well as the author, 
were not personal disciples of Jesus, but received the Gospel from 
them. The expression ‘ot &xoUcavteg” may include apostles. If, how- 


267 cannot understand how Weiss—in explaining this plural—can refer 
to Ch. 2:5, and take it communicatively. Note, too, next to merefouceba 
the address dyanntol. 

27 The éxt tedetétyta receives its meaning through the preceding “8 tH 
a&exns Adyoo”, and the succeeding “d3aynHv”. 

Compare also 5:12: dgetAovtes elvat StSkoxaror Stak tov yodvoy mhAty yoelay 


Eyete tol dtShkoxetv bac. The following shows distinctly that the author, 
or the senders themselves, belong to the fundamental teachers of this circle. 


404 APPENDIX 


ever, the originators of the readers’ and author’s Christianity were 
apostles, then we have a right to expect this definite expression, or 
an equivalent one, to have been chosen. At any rate, the readers and 
the author belong to a second generation, 1.e., genealogically, not 
chronologically. Zahn directs our attention to the author’s treating 
the circle he writes to, not as a second generation but as identical with 
those who (in this place) were the first to become Christians. 

In Ch. 10:32-34, the author shows his intimate knowledge of the 
time of great suffering his readers passed through honorably “in 
former days.” His knowledge of their present inner position and 
actions is shown in the entire letter, above all in the 6étaxovoUyte¢ 
Ch. 6:10, and the sentence (Ch. 12:4) oltrw uéyets atuatosg dy- 
TIKATESTHTE TAOS THY auUaetlay dvtayuviCduevot (Ch. 2:4).28 

Referring to the entire conclusion, Ch. 13:7-24, it is the relation 
of the readers to the tyobwevot upon which it is based, and which 
forms the ever recurring theme. We recognize further the author’s 
(the senders’) somehow or other considering himself as one of 
them—shown in the entire letter and the relation between readers 
and them not to have been entirely cloudless. The author speaks at 
first of the blessed fyoltuevor having suffered martyrdom. Even 
here, their “cgvacteogn” stand out significantly. “Jesus Christ the 
same yesterday, and today, and forever’ is offered as consolation for 
the loss of mortal nyoUuevor. These words are followed immediately 
by a warning against divers and strange doctrines, which are char- 
acterized in the following verses as ascetic (thus most interpreters) 
or, as Von Soden interprets on the contrary, as libertine doctrines. 
When the author adds the proof of nothing having been profited 
(“the heart not being established with grace”) by those taking part 
therein, he shows again his accurate knowledge of the inner conditions 
in the circle addressed. He is not satisfied with the mere statement 
of the actual want of success, but adds a theoretical refutation of that 
false position (inconsiderate participation in sacrificial repasts) (v. 
10-15) by which the example of the old jyotucyot surely was not 
followed. To the false xotvwvt« he opposes (v. 16) the real Christian, 
namely the éutota xat xotvwvta. 


Returning to the relation of the readers to their jyobwevor (now 


28 We cannot conclude by means of these words that the readers have not 
experienced a bloody persecution. They have not yet resisted sin to the very 
last. As to prisoners and mistreated ones at that time, see Ch. 13:3. 


| 


APPENDIX 405 


to the present ones, however) thus (v. 17): “Obey them that have 
the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your 
souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, 
and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you’—it is probable 
that those “strange doctrines” caused controversy, and the readers 
tried to maintain their independency against the ‘fyotuevor. As 
the author adds to this exhortation the words (v. 18): “Pray for 
us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things, willing to 
live honestly,” it follows from this justification—almost an excuse— 
that the author sides with the fyovusvor (shares their opinion in 
the point of controversy in opposition to the majority of the readers), 
and that this condition was known by the recipients before receiving 
the letter, connections between readers and the author having taken 
place continually.2® This is also evident in the next sentence (v. 19): 
“But I beseech you the rather to pray for me, that I may be restored 
to you the sooner, “7. e., the readers are counting upon his return, and 
their prayer is to hasten it.2° The groxatasctab® buiv shows dis- 
tinctly the author’s belonging to the circle addressed, and his absence 
being only temporary, This “membership” may be of various kind. 
We spoke about the change from plural to singular. The lack of an 


éyw (see also v. 23) is to be noted: it shows the change as such 
not at all to be perceived by the author. This proves again that the 
“group” in whose name he speaks must be extremely close to him 
to identify himself with it. 

As the rememberance of the saints fyotusvor is followed in verse 
8 by the reference to Jesus Christ, so the mentioning of the relation 
between the readers and the present fyotuevot, and of self-justifica- 
tion, is followed in verses 20, 21 by the appeal to the God of peace. 
In the mot@y év futy td edadeecotov evomtoy adtod 31a “Ino0d 
Xototod we see changed in truly Christian spirit to a confident prayer 
to God, what was just noticed as the very endeavor of the author 
himself. The very tone just touched (“the God of peace”) explains 
the timbre of the 22d verse: “And I beseech you brethren, suffer 
the word of exhortation: for I have written a letter unto you in a 
few words.” He could, and might have entered upon their inner con- 


29 The self-justification of the author is comprehensible only if he knew 
that there was a distrust, be it ever so slight (see Von Soden referring to it). 

80 These words do by no means indicate the author’s captivity. How fre- 
quently has Paul—although not imprisoned—been “hindered” from coming 
to his congregation. 


406 APPENDIX 


ditions more explicitly, and more severely, but did not do it in order 
to make his words so much more penetrating. Also this verse shows 
the author’s claim to a certain degree of authority concerning the 
readers. Another personal and joyful communication he has for 
them: His—or as he expresses himself “our,” 1. e¢., the senders— 
brother Timothy is set at liberty, and will accompany the author to the 
addressees, if he should come shortly.24_ The senders are on very 
intimate terms with Timothy; he is not for them only a person to be 
held in respect, but “their brother.” The author will not come to 
them attending Timothy, but will—if possible—bring Timothy along 
without postponing his own journey on his account. The result is that 
the author, or the senders of the letter, were prominent Christian 
teachers, belonging likewise to the Pauline circle of friends. With a 
saluation to all jyotwevot and all Christians at the respective place, 
adding the greetings of a group of Italian Christians, the Epistle ends. 

Let us sum up our results: The so-called Epistle to the Hebrews is 
written after the death of Peter and Paul, to a “house-congregation” 
in Rome, having existed there for many years. The author—no per- 
sonal disciple of Jesus, but won by such for the Gospel—belonged 
formerly to this circle in Rome, not only as a common member, but as 
a teacher or man of authority. Separated from them later, he took 
attentive and vivid interest in their fate and inner development, and 
remained in touch with them. In the near future he wishes to return 
to them. But the feeble and faint-hearted condition his friends are 
in, makes it seem advisable to send in advance a detailed letter full 
of vigorous exhortation, which at the same time is to abolish the 
beginning of certain distrust against his person. This letter shows 
masterly didactic, literary style, gained through long practice; evi- 
dencing complete indifference concerning the difference between Jewish 
and Pauline Christianity, in the sense of later Paulinism, but without 
its means. 

The author belongs to the Pauline circle, and calls Timothy espe- 
cially his brother, and by doing so places himself at least on the 
same level. Chapters 6 and 13 show us him speaking for several for 
whom, in proportion to the readers and Timothy, the same is of value 
as is of value for him, and who are so near him that imperceivedly 
he changes from plural to singular and vice versa, even speaks of 
their conscientious self-examination as of his own. 


81 Timothy had not been imprisoned at the place where the author was 
staying. 


APPENDIX 407 


Should the name of this man and the names of those upholding 
him not be ascertained, in spite of all Pauline letters and the Acts? 
May one not say a priori they must be found there? The person in 
question is too prominent, and his connection with Timothy and Rome 
places him too near the circles known by us, to make it probable not 
to have ever been named, either in Pauline letters or in the Acts. 
Luther thought of Apollos, and Zahn combined once more, on pages 
I5I and 157, etc., what he considers to speak in favor of the authority 
of our letter. But no tradition knows anything of his ever having 
been connected with the Romans, as he was with the Corinthian con- 
gregation, and—what is still weightier—it cannot be understood why 
tradition would not preserve his name as author. The same reason 
that speaks against Barnabas also speaks against Apollos—and Barna- 
bas has at least one testimony in his favor, even if it does not appear 
before the beginning of the third century. 

But there is—if not everything is misleading—a solution to the 
problem, although as far as I know, nobody thought of it—Prisca and 
Aquila. The hypothesis that leads the Epistle to the Hebrews 
back to them is so highly commendable, because it does justice, un- 
restrictedly, to all observations the letter offers concerning author 
and recipients, and because it explains just as unrestrictedly why the 
names were lost: it is on account of Prisca. 

Only in six places in the New Testament are we taught something 
about Priscilla and Aquila,*? but these few places put them in the 
foreground of the history of the Apostolic era. In this respect it 
is highly significant that the author of the Acts gave them so much 
space in his narrative, for we know that he is very sparing of it in the 
second half of his book wherever there is no reference to Paul.*® 
Furthermore it is noteworthy that not only the author of the Acts 
places Prisca’s name before her husband’s (18:18, 26),°4 but also 


Paul wrote ’AxtAacg xat Iletcxe only in I Corinthians 16:19, 
whereas in Romans 16:2 and II Timothy 4:19, Hletoxa xat ’Axdrac. © 


32 The Aquila of the pseudo-Clementines has nothing in common with our 
Aquila. Even if he were identical with him, nothing would be gained from 
those tales. Fabulous accounts of a still later time amount to just as little. 

33 He surely knew a great deal more about them than he relates, which 
is proven by his knowledge of their previous history (Aquila, a Jew, born 
in Pontus, having lived formerly in Rome). 

84 At the introduction (18:2) that was impossible, of course, but see 
further on. 

35 In Corinthians, husband and wife themselves send greetings—the hus- 
band’s name being first was proper. In the two other passages Paul sénds 


408 APPENDIX 


Hence Prisca was the principal person, either in reference to the 
significance of the couple for the missions and Christian service, or 
she was of nobler birth than her husband (the one as well as the 
other may have been the case). The latter case seems probable to 
Ramsay; °° he writes: “Probably Prisca was of higher rank than her 
husband, for her name is that of a good old Roman family. Now, 
in Acts 18:2 the very harsh and strange arrangement of the sentence 
must strike every reader. But clearly the intention is to force on the 
reader’s mind the fact that Aquila was a Jew, while Priscilla was not; 
and it is characteristic of Luke to suggest by subtle arrangement of 
words, a distinction which would need space to explain formally. 
Aquila was probably a freedman. The name does indeed occur as 
cognomen in some Roman families; but it was also a slave name, for 
a freedman of Maecenas was called (C. Cilnius) Aquila. There is 
probably much to discover in regard to this interesting pair, but in 
this place we cannot dwell on the subject.” I cannot see that Acts 18:2 


(xatl ebowmy tive "Loudsatoy dvéuate "Axdrav, Iloveexdy t@ yéver, 
xposodtuy éAnrubdta dnd "Itartac xat TptoxtrArav yuvatxe adrod) 
gives certain proof of Prisca’s not having been a Jewess.8? This 
explanation of that part, as well as her name signifying her descent 
from a worthy old family, and of her being of higher rank than her 
husband, remain merely a noteworthy possibility. However that may 
be—at any rate she must have distinguished herself through her 
Christian activity beside her husband, or even more than he. That 
is seen strikingly in Acts 18:26 and Romans 16:2, etc., for according 
to that part, not only Aquila, but also Priscilla, instructed Apollos 


(dxobcavtes 38 adtod IlptoxtArAw xat "Axurde meoceAdBovto aitoy 
xat dxorbéotepoy adt@ eFéHevto thy 68bv tod Oc00—we may con- 
clude from it that she was the principal teacher, else she would 
hardly have been mentioned,®* and in the Epistle to the Romans, Paul 


greetings to them, and mentions the wife first. Therefore, the passage in 
Corinthians does not gainsay Prisca’s preference universally adhered to by 
Paul and Luke. 

Ly Paul, the traveler and the Roman citizen (3d edition, 1897, p. 268, 
CLC?) 

87 The style of the sentence is indeed striking. Prisca being mentioned at 
all (and that in the form obdvIIprcx. or something similar, but parallel 
to Aquila), and, therefore, reading rpocnAOev aitd¢ adds very much to the 


prominence of the woman. Compare Blass regarding construction, edit. 
maior, p. I95. 


88 Chrysostom, who had fine sense of style, omits Aquila entirely in his 


APPENDIX 409 


calls her and Aquila—not only the latter—his “helpers in Christ 
Jesus.” This expression—not frequently used by Paul—signifies much; 
Prisca and Aquila are legitimized by it as professional evangelists and 
teachers. But Paul adds the following: ofttves bree tHS PuxXTS 
“ou toy &xuTMY TOayHAOV OnéOnxav ofc obx éyW Udvosg edyaorotd 
GhAX nal maou at éexxAnotat tOv €0vGv. Unfortunately we do not 
know to which heroic occurrence the first half of the sentence refers; 
the second half shows the Christian labor of husband and wife to 
have been really ecumenical. Paul does not tell us through which 
deed “all the churches of the Gentiles’? were indebted to Prisca and 
Aquila,®® but the fact of their having worked so vigorously and suc- 
cessfully among the Gentiles is significant enough. They must have 
overcome all Jewish prejudice as to have the Apostle look up to them 
with admiration and thankfulness, and to have him assure them of 
the gratefulness of the entire Gentile church. Where else did he 
speak about one of his helpers in expressions of such broad recogni- 
tion? Finally it must be mentioned that, when Apollos was dis- 
posed to go to Achaia, the pair anticipated him, and by a letter to the 
Corinthian Christians, procured good reception for him (18:27).*° 
Besides these testimonies—receiving and instructing Apollos, and 
ecumenical mission work, and teaching—we know but little about the 
outer vicissitudes of the pair. By the edict of Claudius they were 
driven from Rome; they had just reached Corinth when Paul arrived 
there. Whether they were Christians when leaving Rome, or were 
converted by Paul, is not said in the Acts; consequently we may as- 
sume this or that. Nothing being said about it, however, in the 
Acts, and Paul’s silence concerning it, makes their coming to Corinth 
as Christians more plausible. The “Ioddatog (18:2) does not speak 


paraphrase of the passage, and designates Prisca alone as the teacher of 
Apollos: Sevier thy yuvatxa thy "AmoAAG roocAauBavonévny xal xarnxioacav 


thy 63dv to xuoelou. 

89 The activity of husband and wife in the three principal places, Corinth, 
Ephesus, and Rome, is probably sufficient. I do not consider it probable 
that all Gentile churches owe thanks to Prisca and Aquila only for having 
saved the Apostle’s life. Neither Origen nor Chrysostom thought of it thus, 


but thought of their gtAoEevia xat thy dad tH Yonuk twy AettovEylay. 
40 rootpepauevot causes difficulties no matter whether we refer it to 
Apollos or to the Corinthian Christians. Blass’ hypothesis of a Latinism, 


the word, being equal to “antevertontes,” is interesting. &3<Agot must first 
of all mean the pair, for at that time there was no congregation at Ephesus; 
therefore, the letter of recommendation had to come from them. ; 


410 APPENDIX 


against it of course. Paul shared their home, for they, too, were 


oxnvomotot (18:3). In Corinth they must have displayed great ac- 
tivity, and must have been known to the entire congregation; for 
Paul sends their especially hearty greetings in the I Epistle to the 
Corinthians (16:19). When he left Corinth later, they accompanied 
him to Ephesus (18:18) and remained there while he returned East 
occasionally. If we observe their work in Ephesus before Paul began 
his great activity there, their move to Rome before his coming thither 
(Romans 16:3), but evidently no longer in Rome when Paul is there 
—having gone again to the Orient—to Ephesus? to Iconium?— 
whither Paul again intended to travel from Rome, and in fact did 
travel (II Tim. 4:19), then we cannot suppress the supposition that 
they preceded him as pathfinders. They, however, did not only do 
missionary work, but first of all gathered circles of Christians in the 
different places, and made their house the central point for these. 
We have proof for this concerning Ephesus and Rome. ‘The con- 
version of Apollos for full Christian faith belongs also to this up- 
building and cultivating activity, which cannot be thought of without 
constant teaching. That the pair was able to bring the Gospel to a 
man intellectually eminent and highly educated in Greek, is proof of 
their significance and their special talent as instructors. 

We must glance at the relation between our married couple and 
Timothy. When Paul met Prisca and Aquila in Corinth, Timothy 
had been with him only a short time (Acts 16:1). During the 
eighteen months spent by the Apostle in that place, Prisca, Aquila, 
and Timotheus, were together; we may say they passed through 
school together. Not counting short interruptions, the pair worked 
again, and possibly dwelt with Paul and Timothy during the Apostle’s 
three years’ stay in Ephesus. When Paul wrote the Epistle to the 
Romans, Timothy sends salutations (Rom. 16:21) to Prisca and 
Aquila in Rome, and in II Timothy 4:19, Paul asks Timothy to greet 
them. We shall not be wrong in supposing an especially friendly re- 
lationship to have existed between the pair and Timothy. 

He who thinks about what has been compiled here regarding Prisca 
and Aquila, and compares it with the characteristic particulars the 
Epistle to the Hebrews offers concerning its author, will have to 
consider it probable that the letter was written by this pair; for: 

(1) The Epistle comes from a highly educated and masterly teacher 
—Priscilla and Aquila exercised an especially important activity as 
teachers, and even converted the prominent Apollos of Alexandria. 


APPENDIX 411 


(2) The letter was written by one belonging to Paul’s circle of 


friends. Paul called Prisca and Aquila his “cuveeyot.” 

(3) The senders (authors) of the letter are closely connected with 
Timothy, and consider themselves his equals—if one may use this 
expression. Prisca and Aquila, together with Timothy, went to school 
as missionaries and teachers in Corinth for eighteen months, and 
were with him in Ephesus. It is certain that they were at least his 
equals concerning authority. 

(4) The author of the letter writes after Paul’s death (and to be 
sure, quite a little time after it). At any rate, Prisca and Aquila 
were still living when Paul wrote the last document we have from 
him (II Tim. 4), and there is nothing to prevent us from believing 
them to be living two decades later.*! 

(5) The author belonged once and for a longer time to a closer 
Christian circle (a house-congregation) in Rome, and filled in it a 
highly esteemed position, that of a teacher. He still considers him- 
self belonging to this circle, and to this very one he wrote in the 
manner of an authoritative companion—hoping to return to them soon. 
Prisca and Aquila started from Rome, returned thither after a number 
of years, presided there over an “ecclesia” in their home, and then 
again left Rome. The relationship—not entirely clear in the letter— 
between author and addressees (their fundamental missionary? their 
teacher? their friend and companion?) is instantly made clear if we 
recognize in the author the former central figure of the house-congre- 
gation. 

(6) The Epistle to the Hebrews has one author, supported, how- 
ever, by an extremely closely-connected “we.” Without emphasizing 
the change, the writer glides from “we” to “I,” and vice versa. 
The divers “we” are as cordial and authoritative as “I’-——Prisca and 
Aquila, as husband and wife, and through their common labors, 
praised by Paul and Luke, correspond so splendidly to these conditions 
as no other conceivable interpretation. 

(7) The marked paradox in the history of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews is the disappearance of the author’s name. If Barnabas or 
Luke, Clement or Apollos, had been the author, the disappearance 
could not be explained at all. If, however, Prisca and Aquila were 
the senders, and she the real authoress (as one is inclined to believe 
by her place in Paul’s and Luke’s writings), then it can be explained 


41 There is no reason to think of them as born before the year twenty. 
Therefore, they need not have been of great age around the year eighty. 


412 APPENDIX 


without any difficulty why the names were suppressed when the letter 
was circulated from Rome (about the beginning of the second cen- 
tury). With good reason it was not circulated as a writing from 
Prisca and Aquila to their home-congregation, but as an anonymous 
edifying writing from the older generation. Paul had not been in 
favor of teaching by women (I Corinthians 14:34, etc.), but had 
yielded to some exceptions, as is shown by his opinion of Prisca, 
and also in I Corinthians 11:5, and Philippians 4:2, etc. In the 
later years, evidently after sad experience, added rigorism was evi- 
dent. The struggle begun against women-teachers in the church— 
the author of Acta Pauli is an exception—lasting till the beginning 
of the third century, need not be related here. Attention may be 


drawn here to I Timothy 2:12, etc.: Stdaoxeryv 8 yuvarxt ovx 
émitoéew 0058 adbevtety dvdodc, GAA’ elvat év Hourxlg........ owOyoetat 


dé Gta tHS texvoyoviac. He certainly explains the loss of the pair’s 
name extremely well. No other hypothesis—made so far—about the 
author can do justice to this negative fact; this one, however, does 
really explain it. As the disappearance of the real address is ex- 
plained through the fact that the letter was not directed to a general 
congregation, the riddle about the loss of the author’s name is solved 
when the letter has had no author, but an authoress. If Aquila, not 
Prisca, had been the writer, the wife’s name next to the husband’s as 
sender offered a sufficient offense in after-days. 

(8) We know, not only generally, that women-teachers in Church 
came into ill repute very soon, and in increasing measure, and we 
know specially that Prisca’s position was suppressed very energetically 
even at the beginning, yes, a letter she sent was even withdrawn from 
her, and consequently from her husband, and given another author. 
I examined the parts of the Acts, Ch. 18:1, etc., relating to the pair, 
in the minutes of the proceedings of the Royal Prussian Academy 
of Science, January I1, 1900, according to the two recensions ( g == 
Greek Capital Letter Text, @== Syro-Latin Recension and Cod. D), 


and ascertained the following: 1. While we read ina (v. 2): ebeov.... 
"Axdray.... xat TotoxtArav yuvatxe adcod, B writes ebowy.... “Axd- 
Ue A ae ody ITproxthAn yuvacxt adco0, consequently « continues: 


mpocHABev attotc, 8, however (Cod. D): xpocHAOcyv alto; 


42 Hilgenfeld did not put the aitw. Blass not the ceochAOev ait@ in the 
8 text. The latter preferred the reading of another exegete in reference to 
8, also offering the singular: & 3 [laGdo¢ éyvibcbyn tH ’AxdAg. 


APPENDIX ake 


2. While twice (vs. 18 and 26) « writes: Ilotoxthra xat "Axdrac, 
6 writes in verse 26 where the conversion of Apollos is spoken of: 
"Axtbrag xat IotoxthkAa (Dd. HLPM syr. utq. Gigas).4% 3. While 
@ never mentions Aquila alone, but always with (and after) his 
wife, @ inserts Aquila alone three times, i.¢., verse 3: 6 58 Iaidoc 
éyvacbn tH ’AxtAg; verse 7: xal wetabac dnd t00 "Axdda; verse 
22: toy 58 ’Axdtday etacey gv "Hoéow.44 Evidently Prisca is to 
be put in the background. 4. The most important difference is shown 
in verse 27. Here a letter of recommendation for Apollos is referred 
to, which had been sent from Ephesus to Corinth (after Apollos’ 


full conversion by Prisca and Aquila had been told). I shall place 
the two texts side by side: 


at 8 

BourAowgvou 8& adtod éy 88 ty “Hoéow éexrdyuotvrés 
tives KootvOror xat dxotcavtes adtod 

SteABety etc thy “Ayatay, mapexdAouy StedOety aby adtots elg 
THY TAaTELSa autToyY 

TOOT OSWAWEVOL ouyxatavevcaytosg d& adtTod 
of "Hoégoror 

ot a&deAgot 

EYeavay tots UAbyntaAIlc Eyoadvay tots év KootvOm uaby- 
THIS, STWS 

anoséeacbar adréy. anodééwvtar tov &vdoa. 


That the @ text originated in the @ text is shown by the scarcely 
bearable SteAOety eto thy matet3a (instead of the easily understood 


etc thy “Ayatayv), further by the &xoUcavtes adtod taken over from 
verse 26, and finally, strikingly, by the observation of the lack of 
necessity for the Ephesians to write a letter of recommendation to 
Corinth for Apollos, if Corinthians prevailed upon him to travel to 


43 Why Blass did not accept this reading for his text seems unintelligible 
to me. Hilgenfeld has followed it. 

44 Blass puts the first and third, Hilgenfeld only the second of these cases 
into the g text. That is arbitrary. Doubt can be felt only in the first 
case whether it might not be a later correction. 


414 APPENDIX 


their native city, and even accompanied him. Therefore the wording 


in ® is an arbitrary mutilation, having a distinct tendency. What is 


bd 


its purpose? According to @ “the brethren,” 7. e., Prisca and Aquila, 
are the writers of the letter of recommendation *5 that is easily under- 
stood: They had spent eighteen months in Corinth, and had formed 


strong links to the church there—according to 8 a few Corinthian 
Christians stopping at Ephesus had induced Apollos to undertake the 
journey,*® and “the Ephesians” wrote the letter. Those Corinthians 
staying in Ephesus, as well as these “Ephesians,” are nothing else but 
reduplication of Prisca and Aquila. The interpolator wanted to ex- 
punge the pair and their letter, and did it. No other effective motive 
can be found but the one just shown: Prisca disturbed him, and he 
did not approve of her letter-writing.*? 


It is quite certain that the interpolator (6, taking up his correc- 
tions in the first third of the second century,** suppressed Prisca’s 
authority, placing Aquila above her in converting Apollos, and with- 
drew from them a letter they had written.49 Thus it is proven that a 
tendency existed at that time to weaken the remembrance of Prisca’s 
significance, or to destroy it vigorously. About this very time, the 
Epistle to the Hebrews may have been circulated, starting in Rome.®° 


457 suppose it was she alone, for an Ephesian Congregation did not yet 
exist. It is possible, however, that a few newly converted Christians in 
Ephesus joined them. 

46 The interpolator understood xpotpep&uevor to be equivalent to mapexcAouy, 
and referred it to Apollos. 

47 He may also have taken offense at Apollos’ having planned of his own 
accord to go to Corinth. But that cannot have been the decisive motive for 
the interpolation, since he would have overcome this obstacle by merely 
making, with a very slight change, the married couple the originators of the 
plan. 

48 For the time of the interpolator, Acts 5:39, must be considered. To the 
words of Gamaliel to the High Council: 08 duvhcecbe xataktcat abtotc. he 
added: ote busts ote Bacthetc ote tbpavor. This addition is improper (a 
Ustepov—rpétepov) and proves that neither emperors nor tyrants like Nero 
and Domitian have overthrown Christendom. 

49 He has not been the only one. When enumerating those who had been 
of great help to Paul, Tertullian, in his de fuga in perc. 12, mentions 
Onesiphorus, Aquila and Stephanus, and not a word about Prisca. Because 
the interpolator 8 was not allowed to rewrite but only to “review” the text 
peru to him, prevented him from carrying out his intention more 
clearly. 

50 It should not be overlooked that the author of the first Clement letter 
makes ample use of the Epistle to the Hebrews—even copies it, but without 


APPENDIX 415 


If by reason of the eight arguments compiled here it seems feasible 
to trace the Epistle to the Hebrews back to the pair,5! it might be 
contended whether Prisca or Aquila was the writer. The prominent 
position of this woman, testified by Paul as well as Luke, and the 
established fact of her having been the main factor in the conversion 
of Apollos, will incline the judgment in her favor.5? Who, however, 
takes offense at a woman having written a letter in the “New Testa- 
ment,” may also take offense at Paul’s calling this woman his “helper,” 
and saying in praise of her that “all the Churches of the Gentiles” 
owe thanks to her; he may also take offense at her, a teacher, having 
converted Apollos. 

Combinations! Hypotheses! you will say. Surely: Combinations 
and hypotheses; for I am not capable of producing a conclusive testi- 
mony. I superscribed this treatise only “Probabilia,” and am aware 
of the arguments not being cogent. But I feel at liberty to say that 
this new hypothesis about the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
is superior to all that have been produced in ancient and modern times, 
that it corresponds to the tenor of the letter, and also solves the 
riddle of its history in the Church,°? that it has a strong support in 


the manner with which the interpolator 8 of the Acts treated Prisca, 
and the letter to Corinth, and finally that, as far as I can see, not 
a single contrary observation exists.°* 


saying so. This manner of using it does not support the conjecture that 
the author suspected the Corinthians’ acquaintance with the letter. 

51 This supposition remains probable, even if the thought arises to give 
another address to the letter than the one we have recommended, and if 
one does not refer 10:32, etc., and 13:7 to the Neronian persecution (or to 
Peter and Paul), These references only heighten the probability. 

52 Without laying great stress upon it, I should not like to mention the 
observation that in the large catalogue of heroic believers (Ch. 11), 
women were mentioned three times (vs. II, 31, 35), and that in two of 
these places (vs. 11 and 35) they are rather far-fetched. Naturally it 
surprised the expounders that Sarah is placed beside Abraham in this list, 
and even more surprising is the sentence inserted in the Heroes’ Catalogue: 
EAaBoy yuvatnec E dvact&aews todc vexeods aitmy, which really does not belong 
there. That it is of interest to name also women as witnesses of the faith 
is very evident, and should make us think, especially as the Old Testament 
offers very incomplete examples for it. 

58 Especially those who heretofore have favored the Apollos-hypothesis 
will find especial reason to consider the hypothesis recommended here. 
Everything that can be said of favor of the Apollos’ hypothesis can be said 
of this one, and added to it many other and more valuable arguments. 

54 Tt is certainly striking that Prisca and Aquila do not hope to come to 
Rome together, and that only one promises to come. Yet I cannot see in it 
a real counter-argument. We know the prevailing conditions too little, or, 
moreover, not at all. 


416 . | APPENDIX 


APPENDIX B 
WOMAN’S DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 
(A Resolution Adapted at Seneca Falls Convention July 19-20, 1848) 


“That, being invested by the Creator with the same capabilities and 
the same consciousness of responsibility for their exercise, it is 
demonstrably the right and duty of woman, equally with man, to pro- 
mote every righteous cause by every righteous means; and especially 
in regard to the great subjects of morals and religion, it is self- 
evidently her right to participate with her brother in teaching them, 
both in private and by writing and by speaking, by any instrumentalities 
proper to be used, and in any assemblies proper to be held; and this 
being a self-evident truth, growing out of the divinely implanted 
principles of human nature, any custom or authority adverse to it, 
whether modern or wearing the hoary sanction of antiquity, is to be 
regarded as a self-evident falsehood and at war with mankind.” 


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